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Growing Up New tribal casinos are few and far between, but market growth continues By Dave Palermo
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federal government ruling on long-awaited efforts by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians of northwest Michigan to build a casino hotel in Fruitport Township, 90 miles from tribal headquarters, is expected this summer. The $180 million project has support from the local citizenry and is expected to get the approval of the governor, a requirement under federal guidelines for placing off-reservation land in trust for tribal gambling. It would be the tribe’s second casino. “West Michigan has embraced the project,” tribal Ogema Larry Romanelli told WZZM13.com. “It means jobs. It means economic development. It means increased tourism.” In neighboring Wisconsin, the Ho-Chunk Nation is hoping to build a $405 million casino resort in Beloit, on the Illinois border roughly 180 miles south of tribal headquarters in Black River Falls. Ho-Chunk Gaming already operates six gambling facilities. “We feel energized, as this is the farthest this project has ever been,” Ho-Chunk Nation President Wilfrid Cleveland said in a statement. The casino hotel, he said, will create “thousands of construction jobs and 1,500 full-time jobs for Wisconsin.” “This is going to have a positive impact on the entire region,” Beloit City Manager Lauri Curtis told a December public forum. The two Midwest projects bode well for the tribal government gambling market. At least three other tribes—two in California and a third in Texas—are also close to launching new casinos on trust lands off their reservations.
New Casinos Dry Up But Ho-Chunk and the Little River Band are the exception and not the rule, as the nationwide spread of Indian casinos—which exploded with passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) of 1988—is slowing to a trickle. As a result, the growth of the tribal gambling industry is becoming increasingly dependent on the expansion of existing facilities and the development of non-gambling amenities such as hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. Tribes are also turning away from the regulatory limits of IGRA and 34
Global Gaming Business APRIL 2019
acquiring or constructing commercial casinos subject to state taxation and regulations. The number of tribal gambling facilities ranging from travel plazas to casino resorts has largely plateaued, increasing slightly from 474 operations in 2015 to 494 in 2017, according to the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC). Updated figures are expected later this summer. The Indian Gaming Industry Report, an annual analysis compiled by economist Alan Meister, puts the number of tribal facilities at 490 in 2014, 494 in 2015 and 500 in 2016, a paltry jump of 1.2 percent. Roughly 245 of 373 federally recognized tribes in the lower 48 states operate casinos. About 80 other tribes either receive shares of gambling revenue from casino tribes or lease machines. The remaining tribes either are too remote or lack sufficient land to launch a casino enterprise. “With some exceptions, the Indian gaming market is fully developed,” says Bryan Newland, chairman of the Bay Mills Indian Community and a former counsel with the Department of the Interior. “There are tribes seeking to become new entrants into the gaming market. But by and large, most federally recognized tribes that want to engage in gaming are already doing it.” “There just haven’t been a lot of new, ground-up, greenfield developments,” says William “Dike” Bacon, principal of the Hnedak Bobo Group, an archi“There’s definitely tecture and construction mana maturing of the agement firm. “There are some, market, but by no but not many. means is there an “Most of the tribes that had overall saturation.” trust lands and had the opportu—Alan Meister, Publisher, The nity to capitalize on the gaming Indian Gaming Industry Report market have done that. There probably are a limited number