The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Prairie Knights Casino in North Dakota has seen its revenues drop in recent months in large part since its access road has been blocked by protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Tribal CFO Jerome Long Bottom told the Bismarck Tribune, “It’s like it’s fallen off a cliff. When the bridge was shut off, the numbers just plummeted.”
The tribe’s budget is now running into the red, somewhat supplemented by $3.2 million in donations. “That’s only going to get us so far.”
What the tribe needs is for North Dakota Highway 1806 reopened and for relations to improve with the customers who used to take that road to the casino.
E.J. Iron Eyes, the casino’s general manager, is ramping up a PR campaign to bring them back. “I’m looking for things to improve as we move into summer,” he told the Tribune.
The casino normally draws from North Dakota, including Bismarck-Mandan, Jamestown and Minot,
Other factors have minimized sales too, including the particularly hard winter and the bad economy.
Some old customers have the same fears as one former regular who commented, “We used to come a lot. We don’t anymore. I felt kind of unsafe coming down.” Many regulars felt intimidated by the protestors who traveled from all over the country to Standing Rock protesting the pipeline. But they also marched through the casino doors, doing sit-ins and playing guitars and violating no loitering signs. They also put a strain on the hotel facilities. It was no unusual for a guest to check into the hotel and then allow 30 or 40 friends to use the showers.
“We’ve had heavy use,” said Iron Eyes. On the other hand, many of the rumors about the visitors were untrue. There wasn’t rampant alcohol use and there were no gunshots fired in the parking lot.
The casino, besides funding a variety of programs for the tribe’s members, also employs 350, most which are from the reservation. But since it also purchases supplies from local vendors, its declining revenues have also had an ancillary effect on local businesses. A local beer distributor, McQuades Distributing, has seen its sales decline 6 percent for 2016.
A local limousine service, which relies almost entirely on trips to and from the casino has seen business dry up almost entirely. Owner Ricky Berge told the Tribune: “Entertainment sources in North Dakota are somewhat limited, because we’re a rural state. I’m thinking at a certain point it’s going to come back.”
