Oklahoma tribal leaders at the recent Reservation Economic Summit , held at the Cherokee-owned Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, discussed the threat of daily fantasy sports and the importance of acting together in gaming compact negotiations.
Cherokee and Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association officials said they consider daily fantasy sports as a violation of the exclusivity rights granted by their gaming compacts with the state. Cherokee Nation Assistant Attorney General Chrissi Nimmo rejected Draft Kings’ and Fan Duel’s claims that daily fantasy sports is not gambling. “It’s the gambling aspect that draws people in,” she said, adding the Cherokees are not against daily fantasy sports. “We want to be involved in them,” she stated.
Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Executive Director Sheila Morago noted tribes worked together in March to defeat a bill to legalize fantasy sports in the state. “We killed that bill in seven hours,” she said. Morago called the possibility of the legislature giving the tribes’ exclusivity fees to allow daily fantasy sports in the state would be “fuzzy math.”
The first of Oklahoma’s gaming compacts with Native American tribes will expire January 1, 2020. Officials at the recent Reservation Economic Summit, hosted by the Cherokee Nation at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, said tribes must work together to get the most beneficial results. Otherwise, warned Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Chairman Brian Foster, “the state is going to divide and conquer, and we can’t allow that to happen.”
Tribal officials also stressed the importance of a “united front” regarding renegotiating their gaming compacts, the first of which will expire on January 1, 2020. Nimmo said Oklahoma tribes have “bargaining power in unity,” noting one tribe would not be able to get a better deal than any others.
Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Chairman Brian Foster pointed out California tribes “are tearing each other apart” to try to land better compacts from the state. If Oklahoma tribes don’t stick together, he said, “the state is going to divide and conquer, and we can’t allow that to happen.”
In 2004, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 712, a ballot initiative authorizing Class III gaming. Since then, the state’s tribes have opened 12 casinos and generated $1.1 billion for the state.
