The case of the Cowlitz Tribe’s ability to be a federally-recognized Indian tribe with a reservation and casino near La Center, Washington, is poised to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Nothing guarantees that it will do so, however. The court gets 7,000 petitions annually, and usually hears fewer than 100 of them.
At stake is the $510 million Ilani Casino Resort that is expected to open next spring—unless the Supremes apply the brakes.
Opponents, including card rooms in La Center, Citizens Against Reservation Shopping and three private citizens, have appealed the case to the High Court and await its decision whether to hear it. They have lost at every level of the federal court system, and some of the original plaintiffs, including the city of Vancouver and Clark County, have dropped out.
Clark County recently announced that its “best interests” would be served by working with the tribe to manage off-reservation impacts of the casino.
What opened the way for a Supreme Court challenge is the fact that in 2009 the High Court ruled that tribes recognized by the federal government after 1934 can’t put land into trust. The Cowlitz tribe was recognized in 2002.
The tribe has so far successfully argued that it has been a tribe for 200 years, but was not recognized because its population was scattered.
Bill Iyall, chairman of the Cowlitz Tribe, commented, “It is unfortunate that the owners of the card rooms in La Center continue to undermine the significant economic development the Cowlitz Tribe is bringing to our community by filing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling.”
Meanwhile the Ilani casino is holding job fairs to fill 1,000 positions from dealing blackjack to providing security, to running a wastewater plant or IT support. Nearly half of the jobs to be filled are gaming related. The 17 restaurants that will serve the casino will hire their employees separately.
The casino plans to hold a separate dealer school after the first of the year.
In a separate but related development Spectrum Gaming Group presented a study to the Washington State Gambling Commission that predicts that gross gaming receipts in the state will increase by 36.7 percent by 2020 to $3.5 billion.
The idea of the 159-page study, said Commissioner Chris Stearns, was to generate gaming date specific to the Evergreen state that would take in both commercial, non-profit and tribal gaming, as well as fantasy sports. “For the first time, we’re seeing data that is specific to Washington and can be properly used to guide economic growth with investment and with our values,” he said. For example, the study predicts that the number of those employed in the industry will increase 9 percent by 2020.
The report also measured impacts of technological advances and the effects of gaming on tourism. It concluded that Washington has a larger gaming presence than any other state except Nevada, California and Oklahoma. It notes that 26 of 39 counties have one casino or cardroom and sometimes more.
