I became interested in Indian gaming after observing how gaming revenues positively impacted tribes and tribal members. Tribal gaming is different from commercial gambling because it is conducted by tribal governments for the primary benefit of its members. One tribal leader observed that essentially there are no gaming profits from their casinos because 100 percent of earnings go toward tribal infrastructure. Tribal sovereignty -- the tribes' inherent rights to self-govern -- is the foundation upon which Indian gaming is built, and revenues foster both cultural and political sovereignty.
By cultural sovereignty I mean that tribes are investing in programs that reinforce and foster tribal cultures -- language restoration, indigenous foods, and land buy-back. Many reservations with gaming enterprises are able to expand economic development beyond gaming, which creates employment for tribal members who want to return home to work and for non-Indian neighbors both on and off reservations. When considering tribal gaming, Native communities contemplate questions related to tribal identity and tribal cultural practices, and weigh potentially negative impacts on identity and culture against the possibility of economic success.
Political scientists, anthropologists, and legal scholars have written extensively about tribal gaming, but historians have not yet deeply explored this topic because it is such a recent development. As a historian, my aim is to analyze Indian gaming in context of tribal sovereignty and federal Indian policy, and also through the lens of community. The National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) is a grassroots organization founded 30 years ago, even before passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Established by leaders in tribal gaming, NIGA has advocated tribal self-determination and sovereignty from its beginning, and it continues to work on tribes' behalf. Today, more than 180 tribes and nations hold NIGA memberships. That sense of community, fostered by leadership coming from within tribes rather than outside, keeps tribes connected to each other and to the national scene.
As tribes worked to develop gaming, they encountered obstacles, and they needed the community that NIGA provided. While using the Katherine Spilde Papers on tribal gaming in the UNLV Special Collections, I realized that the materials represent a real-time snapshot of the questions that emerged as Indian gaming grew from the early 1990s through the first decade of the 20th century. Spilde held several professional positions during the time she collected these materials, and in each position she researched the politics and economics of tribal gaming.
State and federal officials were caught unprepared for the arrival of tribal gaming, and for its rapid growth. Attempts to limit tribal gaming came from all corners -- state, federal, corporate -- and tactics ranged from states refusing to negotiate gambling compacts to elected officials trying to influence or change the process for federal recognition of Indian tribes. This resistance illustrated the dichotomy of opinions about tribal gaming; non-Indians opposed it even as they consumed it and helped create the $29 billion industry it is today.
Native communities have been writing their histories of Indian gaming all along. As a scholar and a community member, I hope that my project can build on their work and tell a story of how tribal leaders across the U.S. collaborated to create something new for Indian Country.
About Laurie Arnold
Laurie Arnold is an enrolled member of the Sinixt Band of the Colville Confederated Tribes and is director of Native American Studies at Gonzaga University. She previously held positions at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago and at the University of Notre Dame. Her first book, Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead: The Colville Confederated Tribes and Termination, was published by the University of Washington Press in 2012. She holds a PhD in history from Arizona State University and a bachelor's degree in history from Oregon State University.
