Gaming tribes pushed back against the ideas that their current regulatory framework must be fundamentally modified, and that tribal casinos are becoming breeding grounds for human trafficking, in a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday afternoon.
The hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs re-examining the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 30 years on had been much anticipated, particularly as it had twice been rescheduled earlier in the year.
Two panels of tribal gaming experts laid out their case for why the principles of tribal self-sovereignty and self-governance laid out in IGRA must not be tampered with, noting that any tinkering would put the $31 billion industry at risk, and that tribes must be intimately involved in the formation of any changes to the IGRA framework.
“The success of the Indian gaming industry is due in large part to the expertise tribes have developed in running and regulating their operations,” said Jonodev Chaudhuri, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, in his testimony. “The Commission believes any potential legislation related to gaming must include tribes and provide a level playing field of opportunity for Indian country.”
But that isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of areas where Indian gaming rules can be amended to the benefit of tribes.
Ernie Stevens, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association, urged the committee to examine the potential impact on tribes of new forms of wagering like fantasy sports, sports betting and Internet gaming.
“These activities pose both potential expansion opportunities and challenges to existing tribal gaming operations and tribal-state compact agreements,” he said.
But darker aspects of tribal gaming were raised as well, an issue of concern for many of the senators on the panel, such as chairman John Hoeven of North Dakota, who noted several instances of human trafficking rings being operated through tribal casinos in his state.
John Tasuda, principal deputy assistant secretary of indian affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior noted these issues in his testimony.
“The Department is mindful that, while gaming has great potential to improve economic conditions for tribal and non-tribal communities, it can also introduce new complications to communities, including a drain on local resources, increased traffic, visitation, and crime, such as drugs and prostitution,” he said.
Tasuda, who just assumed his current role in September, received fierce questioning from Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota’s second senator, who noted that tribal casinos inherently attract more people to reservation areas than would otherwise come and urged that more law enforcement resources be made available to help cope with some of the problems therein.
NIGC’s Chaudhuri pushed back on the idea that tribal casinos are rife with such problems and said that the necessary partnerships and initiatives are being undertaken to combat them where they might exist.
“While the NIGC is not aware of any data suggesting human trafficking is any more rampant in Indian gaming than any other large commercial activity with heavy customer movement, we recognize the industry’s strong regulatory structure that provides the agency an area of opportunity to support broader efforts to stamp out human trafficking,” he said.
The hearing came during the same week as the Global Gaming Expo and forced several of the witnesses to leave the conference early to travel to Washington – a point that was not without controversy.
