{"id":26185,"date":"2020-02-24T13:02:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T21:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=26185"},"modified":"2020-02-24T13:02:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T21:02:37","slug":"more-stitt-double-talk-tribes-try-again-for-maine-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/more-stitt-double-talk-tribes-try-again-for-maine-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"More Stitt double talk; Tribes try again for Maine casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma<\/strong> Gov. Kevin Stitt<\/strong> (R) continues to bake over $130 million\/year \"\"in tribal-casino exclusivity fees into his next two budgets<\/a>, despite A)<\/strong> contending that the state’s Native American casinos are operating illegally and B)<\/strong> raiding those exclusivity fees to pay his pricey, out-of-state lawyers. Stitt’s remarkable mind can obviously hold a multiplicity of contradictory opinions simultaneously. Indeed, if the tribes are paying exclusivity fees next year, isn’t Stitt implicitly conceding that their compacts have aut0-renewed, as the tribes insist? In an additional bit of wishful thinking, Stitt budgets for $18 million in extra exclusivity fees\u2014let’s call them taxes\u2014this fiscal year and<\/em> next year. Throw in tribally operated horse tracks, and Stitt is counting on $184 million Indian-derived dollars in FY20 and $180 million in FY21. Meanwhile, tribes are continuing to pay their taxes to the state, so Stitt will have the money to draw upon, if he so chooses, even as he complains that it’s not enough.<\/p>\n

* In other matters tribal, Maine<\/strong> bands wants the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act<\/strong> amended to put them under the jurisdiction of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act<\/strong>. They complain that companies like Penn National Gaming<\/strong> and Churchill Downs<\/strong> are making out like bandits<\/a> at their expense.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not here for casinos. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re here for,\u201d said Michael-Corey Hinton<\/strong>, attorney for the Passamaquoddy Tribe<\/strong>. \u201cWe are here to restore our sovereignty and our ability to self-govern. Under federal law, that would include the right to game.\u201d So they are<\/em> here for casinos, after all.<\/p>\n

Tribes also want more authority over taxes levied on their land and, among other things, handling of tribal criminal cases. They’ve gotten no \"\"help from Gov. Janet Mills<\/strong> (D), who blanched at the prospect of “expensive litigation.” She’s not entirely wrong, as tribes are expect to enforce stronger environmental policies, to the dismay of industry. Some lawmakers want to make things easier by extracting gambling from 21 other tribal proposals and dealing with it as a stand-alone … easier for lawmakers, maybe, as Augusta<\/strong> has turned a deaf ear to tribes in the past.<\/p>\n

Maine tribes had bingo and slots back in the 1970s. No more, not once the settlement act was passed. If Maine law were changed to conform with IGRA, they’d be entitled to all the same forms of gambling from which Churchill Downs and Penn are profiting. “I get frustrated when I hear legislators talk about the need to protect their gaming constituents and jobs in their towns,\u201d complained Penobscot Nation<\/strong> Chief Kirk Francis<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cPenn National is not a constituent. They are a special interest that is temporarily operating a casino in Bangor. When that casino starts to lose money some day, they will be gone and\u2013like the many other corporate interests that have come and gone in this state \u2013 they will leave behind lost jobs.\u00a0The Penobscot Nation could be providing those jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Penn lobbyist, upon hearing that, cried like a stuck pig, saying the state was “saturated” with gambling. Yeah, and that’s what Penn said when \"\"Oxford<\/strong> wanted to open a casino. It did and everybody’s doing just fine. “Our gross gaming revenues dropped significantly when the Oxford Casino<\/strong> opened in 2012, as our studies accurately predicted they would,” wailed Chris Jackson<\/strong>. Yeah, that free market sucks, doesn’t it? If Penn was so worried about profitability, maybe it shouldn’t have agreed to a 50% tax rate on slots. Casinos are always against high taxes\u2014except when\u00a0it’s the price of admission.<\/p>\n

Added Jackson,\u00a0\u201cWe think the people of Maine have said time and time again that they don\u2019t want additional casinos in Maine. However, if there are additional casinos, we want to make sure they are regulated the same way with level of taxation and the same payout mandated by law to customers.\u201d Fair enough.<\/p>\n

* A ban on Internet gambling in Cambodia<\/strong> has resulted in an exodus of Chinese-owned businesses (30 casinos have closed) and tens of thousands of penniless Chinese construction workers left behind. A few, well-connected casinos stay in operation\u2014even if you have to endure raw-sewage ditches<\/a> to reach them. It’s who you knew and (we suspect) how much they are paid. As one Internet casino manager smilingly told a reporter,\u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t have to explain things to you. If you stay longer, I\u2019ll call the police.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) continues to bake over $130 million\/year in tribal-casino exclusivity fees into his next two budgets, despite A) contending that the state’s Native American casinos are operating illegally and B) raiding those exclusivity fees to pay … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[273,275,176,14,37,147,115,69,111,25,31,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26188,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185\/revisions\/26188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}