{"id":27385,"date":"2020-06-23T08:25:10","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T16:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=27385"},"modified":"2020-10-16T06:56:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T14:56:30","slug":"tribes-in-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/tribes-in-distress\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribes in distress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cGaming for the most part is what we survive on. In a lot of cases, if we don\u2019t have gaming we don\u2019t have dollars. We don\u2019t have a tax base.\u201d So says National Indian Gaming Association<\/strong> Chairman Ernie Stevens Jr<\/strong>. He’s describing the existential crisis facing tribal governments as their casinos try to re-emerge from the Covid-19<\/strong> 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<\/a> in revenue to the pandemic. That defunds a lot of tribal government services. As Ho-Chunk Nation<\/strong> President Marlon WhiteEagle<\/strong> says, \u201cIt\u2019s really pretty much crippled our tribal economy.\u201d He ought to know, as 80% of the Ho-Chunk revenue base is casino-driven. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to budget when we don\u2019t know what actual revenue we have to budget with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had to cut our tribal government in half,\u201d lamented Forest County Potowatomi Community<\/strong> Attorney General Jeff Crawfor<\/strong>d, whose tribe has furloughed 60% of its employees. \u201cWe essentially don\u2019t have an effective operating budget for providing services. We are down to essential government services to take care of the needs of our members.\u201d And if you’re a member of one of those tribes that makes distributions of casino revenue directly to its members, forget about checking the mailbox. Coronavirus has dealt a double whammy to tribes. In Wisconsin<\/strong> alone, 20% of tribal members live below the poverty line and unemployment is double what it is for you or me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven Light<\/strong>, co-director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law & Policy<\/strong> at the University of North Dakota<\/strong> puts it bluntly. \u201cWhen you have those kinds of deficits in the first place and because tribal gaming is expressly intended as a matter of public policy to mitigate those problems, Covid-19<\/strong> has had a disproportionately high impact on tribal communities.\u201d Or, as Stevens summarizes it, \u201cThere\u2019s a point where nobody\u2019s working.\u201d\u00a0The crisis makes economic diversification more important than ever. Stevens: \u201cIf we don\u2019t understand it now we never will. If we didn\u2019t listen to our elders then, we\u2019ll listen to our experience right now.\u201d Crawford is blunter still, saying “a lot of tribes are going to be looking at their budgeting processes and reevaluating keeping cash reserve emergency funds. We can\u2019t tax our way out of Covid-19. We can\u2019t run a budget deficit to get us out of Covid-19. We can\u2019t print money to get out of Covid-19.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WhiteEagle calls the $8 billion in tribal aid in the CARES Act<\/strong> “a starting point” but tribal leaders are looking toward the $20 billion earmarked for their people in the HEROES Act<\/strong>, which passed the House of Representatives but is bottled up in the Senate. As Native American Business<\/em> Editor Gary Davis<\/strong> writes<\/a>, “Predictably, it appears that our Native American communities will once again have to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps in the face of what appears to be slow, inadequate relief from the federal government … We paid for these relief packages generations ago through the forced secession of our lands, which compromised our cultures, traditional values and ways of life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"Tribes at least scored a big win in California<\/strong>, where state Sen. Bill Dodd<\/strong> (D) conceded defeat by withdrawing his constitutional amendment to permit sports betting for tribes and table games for card rooms. As gaming expert Ken Adams<\/strong> put it, this was indicative of \u201cthe power the tribes have gained over the last 20 years. Anybody who wants to get a bill through the Legislature is going to have to face that.\u201d Not even a switcheroo by Stand Up for California<\/strong> anti-gambling scold Cheryl Schmit<\/strong> (“It’s much better if it’s out in the public”) could save Dodd. One of the sticking points with the tribes was that he wanted to permit mobile sports betting. Tribes want the wagering done on-property, so as to keep their customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dodd vowed he would be back, saying, \u201cIt remains important that we lift this widespread practice out of the shadows to make it safer and to generate money for the people of California. I will continue to be engaged in the issue as we work toward 2022.\u201d If he returns, he’ll butt heads with a competing, tribally backed ballot initiative. One of the big differences is that tribes would exclude California colleges from betting eligibility, saying it polls badly. The major leagues, meanwhile, want online wagering\u2014as does Dodd. Adds one tribal leader, \u201cThere\u2019s no way to know who\u2019s using that hand-held device. It could be a child. That\u2019s our biggest worry.\u201d Gaming pundits like I. Nelson Rose<\/strong> counter that the tribes’ real<\/em> worry is that people will stay home and play low-margin sports betting, rather than come in for the profitable slots and tables. For now, their status quo (and profit margin) remains intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illinois<\/strong> casinos and slot routes could reopen as soon as Friday, when Phase 4 of Gov. J.B. Pritzker<\/strong>‘s Restore Illinois regimen goes into effect. \u201cThe timing of resumption of video gaming and casino gaming is entirely dependent on the public health conditions at the time,\u201d cautioned Illinois Gaming Board<\/strong> spokesman Gene O’Shea<\/strong>. The pandemic has idled 10 casinos and 36,145 unaffiliated slots. It won’t necessarily be easy to return. Verne’s Gaming Cafe<\/strong> owner Toni Yarber<\/strong> says, “I called my employees that worked here and only one of them is coming back. They found other jobs. So I’m scrambling to find employees, too.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

News of a lifted edict will come as a relief to the City of East St. Louis<\/strong>, which is dependent on Casino Queen<\/strong> for 33% of its budget. “We have not reached the point of having to lay people off yet,” reported City Manager Brooke Smith<\/strong>. “We’ve been able to manage. But I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to.” (Casino Queen does not have a reopening date.) When casinos and slot routes do reopen, it will be without buffets, poker rooms, table game tourneys, valet parking or promos which would cause patrons to “cluster.” Other requirements include operating at only 50% capacity, maintaining six feet of social distancing, temperature screenings, masks for everybody<\/em>, self-reportage of Covid-19 cases and frequent sanitization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than disable half her machines, Yarber is going for plexiglas partitions. \u201cThe partition has to go behind the chair of the player and above their head, I think a foot and a half,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m going to have to start building them, I guess. Everybody needs them, so they\u2019re really expensive. You can\u2019t touch them for under $400 or $600 each.\u201d Safety isn’t cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Golden Nugget<\/strong> slot floor, 4:30 p.m. last Thursday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGaming for the most part is what we survive on. In a lot of cases, if we don\u2019t have gaming we don\u2019t have dollars. We don\u2019t have a tax base.\u201d So says National Indian Gaming Association Chairman Ernie Stevens Jr. … 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":[34,289,14,190,287,283,58,37,33,25,243,20,170],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27385"}],"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=27385"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28205,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27385\/revisions\/28205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}