Dozens of protesters attended a recent meeting of the city council in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. The Kings Mountain Awareness Group members carried signs reading “No casiNo!” and “Stop predatory gambling” and spoke out against the South Carolina-based Catawba Indians’ proposed casino. Some speakers said parents would neglect their children just to gamble, while others warned against the dangers of “predatory” gambling at a casino, which one protestor described as “a reverse vacuum that sucks up every last penny from a community.”
The majority of the city council and other city and county leaders, however, believe the casino could benefit the community. Mayor Rick Murphrey said, “We respect the protesters’ opinion, but we are looking at this as a business plan.” With 1,500 hotel rooms, restaurants and retail in addition to the casino, the development could create 4,000 jobs and generate $15 million in increased revenue for the area, Murphrey said.
Still, members of the Kings Mountain Awareness Group and other opponents have expressed concerns that Cleveland County Commissioners and Kings Mountain’s mayor and city council signed identical letters supporting the casino outside an official meeting, thereby denying public review or input.
Meanwhile, Principal Chief Michell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina painted a positive picture of casino gambling in testimony before a U.S. Senate committee. Hicks said, “Tribal government gaming has been the primary driver for our ability to address the problems in our community, on our terms, and support the culture and traditions that never left. I can testify today that gaming has brought not only economic benefits to our reservation but also positive impacts on Cherokee life expectancy, poverty rates, educational attainment and the physical and mental well being of Cherokee children.”
The tribe owns Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina, which opened in 1997 and has grown to become a major tourist destination that attracts more than 3.1 million visitors annually. The casino, Hicks told Senators, has had a “dramatic impact” on the lives of Cherokee families, especially children, in ways “we never dreamed possible.” Before the casino opened, “our people struggled to get by in challenging economic conditions. People would have to travel off the reservation for work, sometimes for extended periods of time, to support their families in construction or other jobs. This situation tore at the fabric of the foundation of our society, our families,” Hicks said.
But thanks to tribal government gaming, per capita income in Western North Carolina has grown from 70 percent of the state average in the mid-1990s to more than 80 percent today, Hicks noted. The Cherokee Preservation Foundation, which is funded by gaming revenues, “has contributed a leveraged impact of about $99 million for additional social improvements, environmental enhancements, workforce development, and cultural preservation in the region,” Hicks said.
Above all, Hicks stated, has been the impact of gaming revenues on the welfare of the tribe’s children. He said direct payments made to tribal members saves both the Eastern Band and the Federal Government money in the long run. “The Eastern Band Cherokee Tribal Government and the federal government benefit from savings in reduced criminality, a reduced need for psychiatric care and savings gained from not repeating grades. Just four years after the payments to Cherokee families from gaming revenues began, there were substantial improvements among those who moved out of poverty. The frequency of behavioral problems in Cherokee children declined by 40 percent, nearly reaching the risk level of children who had never suffered from poverty.”
