The latest Indian Gaming Industry Report by Alan Meister, is including a new wrinkle in its computations of Indian Gaming revenues nationwide and their economic multiplier effects.
Meister, based in Irvine, California, has been doing the report, which is commissioned by the American Gaming Association, for 17 years. It has always included gaming revenues. Now Meister is taking those numbers and multiplying them to get a total impact figure.
For 2016 Indian gaming collected about $30 billion in revenue, which when multiplied by “how money trickles down through the economy” as Meister phrases it, computes to $96.6 billion in total effect.
Indian tribes do not generally release revenue figures, so Meister uses a roundabout methodology that involves collecting the public data on casinos that is available, while also working with the 242 gaming tribes, 494 casinos, gaming regulators, federal and tribal regulators to get figures that can be aggregated without knowing individual numbers.
To further prevent individual casino data from being revealed, his figures are for states, rather than tribes.
As has been the case for more than a decade, California is the big dog of Indian gaming, accounting for $8 billion of the $30 billion. When multipliers are added, Indian gaming generates $17 billion in economic activity in the Golden State and 111,931 jobs. After California it’s Oklahoma at $4.2 billion, Florida at $2.6 billion, Washington at $2.5 billion and Arizona, $1.9 billion.
According to Meister, “There are some markets that are not yet mature” and still opportunities for growth as some casinos convert to Class III gaming and some tribes acquire more land that can be put into trust.
He also reported more than 10 percent growth in gaming for Texas, North Carolina and South Dakota. Although there are tribes that are hugely successfully when it comes to gaming, 57 percent collect $25 million annually or less, he said. Which does little more than provide jobs to tribal members, he said.
