Gabe Galanda, an attorney and a member of California’s Round Valley Indian Tribes, last week accused the National Indian Gaming Commission of not taking action that could stop gaming tribes from dis-enrolling members in order to increase their own per capita payments from casino profits.
The NIGC has resisted regulating per capita distributions, which, say critics, have led to more tribal members being dis-enrolled. This then increases money for tribal politicians’ friends and supporters.
During the last five years the NIGC has taken no action, despite obvious abuses, say critics.
Says Galanda, “The commission is keenly aware of the disenrollments catalyzed by gaming per capita abuse. Yet the NIGC has done nothing.”
In a piece published recently in Indian Country Today he wrote, “It is easy to blame the Congress, the BIA, and federal courts for allowing mass tribal disenrollment to flourish. They are all complicit. But behind the scenes another federal entity plays a key role, especially in the increasing number of disenrollments tied to gaming per capitas: the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC).”
Galanda notes that previous Chairman Philip Hogen kept a close watch on such practices. “Standard underlying the NIGC’s approach to (per capita) expenditures is that where gaming revenues are spent in a manner that does not benefit the tribal government or tribal membership as a whole, the NIGC will investigate.”
Hogen let it be known that he was ready and able to investigate claims and take action.
Galanda writes, “The current NIGC’s refusal to regulate and deter gaming per capita abuses—or, frankly, to enforce the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA)—was well documented in a 2015 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).” He concludes, “Fortunately, the NIGC can make a game-changing difference—by simply doing its job.
