According to the Arizona Department of Gaming, the state’s 23 casinos operated by15 tribes will contribute about .1 million to the state for the third quarter of 2014. The figure represents an increase of 0.8 percent compared to third quarter 2013. Gaming department Director Dan Bergin, said million will go toward the state’s Instructional Improvement Fund for education, million will go toward the Trauma and Emergency Services Fund and .1 million will go toward Arizona Department of Gaming operating costs.
That revenue increase, among numerous other accomplishments, was celebrated last week at the 2014 Arizona Indian Gaming Association’s Expo held at the Yavapai tribe’s We-Ko-Pa Resort/Conference Center in Scottsdale. Seventeen of the state’s 22 tribes are members. AIGA Executive Director Valerie Spicer said, “Arizona presents a great case study of how Indian gaming has grown to be a vital resource of revenue. Our culture teaches us to give back and help others, so we are proud to report that tribal gaming over the last 11 years has now reached a milestone with a first quarter fiscal year 2015 report of more than $1 billion in shared tribal gaming revenues to the Arizona Benefits Fund.”
Spicer continued, “When tribal leaders envisioned how to share gaming revenues, they wanted to provide not only for their own people, but for everyone who calls our state home. These monies support things like education for our children, economic development, and emergency care, all part of our mission of helping to lift Arizona tribes out of centuries of neglect and poverty.”
At the Expo, San Diego State University’s Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming debuted a new executive certificate program for attendees, unique to Indian Country. Institute Chairwoman, Katherine Spilde said, “We’ve taken portions of our four-year program for Native Americans in tribal casino management and created an executive training mini-version. This is a new frontier for us, the first time we’ve taken the education out of the campus classrooms and presented it directly to the tribes themselves.”
Ernest Stevens Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association, recently noted “tribal gaming has responsibly grown to provide a steady source of revenue to address ongoing social and economic struggles – a total of over $32 billion in direct and ancillary revenues in 2013.”
