Tribes under increasing pressure in casino lobbying scandal

[NVMojo]

December 26, 2005

WASHINGTON -- With little fanfare, Michigan's Indian gaming industry has grown from makeshift bingo halls to state-of-the-art entertainment and casino complexes in a mere 15 years.

The 17 Indian casinos bring jobs, tourists and dollars to the local communities they call home, generating an estimated $1 billion in 2005 alone.

Along with money, the casinos have generated controversy, inviting the kind of government second-guessing, public criticism and zealous competition that comes with enormous, and some would say unchecked, financial success.

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"It's called the `white buffalo' by many of the Native American governmental leaders because ... the government may come back in and do what they've done to the indigenous people before by outlawing it or overregulating it," said Russell, who says the white buffalo, like the brown buffalo in its day, is an economic staple for the tribes.

That white buffalo may ultimately be the tribes' undoing in Washington, where the unrivaled success of tribal casinos (an estimated $19 billion in annual revenues nationwide) coupled with some tribal connections to a Washington scandal (indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff) have given gambling opponents the ammunition to toughen Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) rules.

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