Tribes in distress

“Gaming for the most part is what we survive on. In a lot of cases, if we don’t have gaming we don’t have dollars. We don’t have a tax base.” So says National Indian Gaming Association Chairman Ernie Stevens Jr. He’s describing the existential crisis facing tribal governments as their casinos try to re-emerge from the Covid-19 shutdown. And, mind you, tribal gaming is one of the sectors that’s expected to do best. But it’s lost as much as $22.4 billion in revenue to the pandemic. That defunds a lot of tribal government services. As Ho-Chunk Nation President Marlon WhiteEagle says, “It’s really pretty much crippled our tribal economy.” He ought to know, as 80% of the Ho-Chunk revenue base is casino-driven. “It’s hard to budget when we don’t know what actual revenue we have to budget with.”