How the gaming economy helps Native American tribes navigate shifting policies

Peter Hardeman Burnett, the first governor of California, vowed that the racist movement he supported would continue “until the Indian race becomes extinct.” Between 1848 and 1900, during his two years in government, California’s Native populations were reduced by almost 90% due to forced migration, violence, and hunger.

However, Burnett passed away, his campaign came to a stop, and the Indigenous people of California eventually managed to survive.

The unratified treaties the US had concluded with eighteen California tribes were then made public in 1905. In response, the tribes established a framework for economic and legal tribal sovereignty. Small casinos appeared on reservations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Southern California after the Indian Gaming Regulation Act was passed in 1988. The economic advantages of these resorts, which proliferated throughout the nation, have fueled the fight for tribal sovereignty.

According to a recent report by the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, gaming has aided tribes in building their political and economic capital. Three Indigenous researchers wrote the report: Amy Besaw Medford (Brothertown), Elijah Moreno (Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation), and Randall Akee (Native Hawaiian).

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The writers stated that “nearly every tribe is impacted by gaming in some capacity, whether directly or indirectly.” “Previous research on American Indian gaming probably underestimates its impact because almost all US tribes, whether or not they directly run a casino, may be exposed to various aspects of the industry.”

According to the American Gaming Association, approximately 40% of the $115 billion in gaming revenue in the US comes from the $43.9 billion tribes reported to the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) last year. Additionally, tribes are using those funds to support philanthropy, small businesses, health care, education, and other vital initiatives.

The Harvard study provides an alternative viewpoint on the contentious business by analyzing gaming economies and their impact on tribal investments, both in Indigenous economies and the larger U.S. economy. Tribal gaming has long been criticized, notably for the detrimental social effects of gambling. Between 1990 and 2020, researchers examined 14 indicators for reserve communities in the Lower 48 states, including population, income, poverty, labor, housing, and education. (The Navajo Nation was analyzed separately because of its population.) The authors came to the conclusion that gambling has been essential to tribal economies that have effectively used income for political capital, supporting organizations that advocate for tribal sovereignty, the biggest and most well-known of which is the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).

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