Gaming tribes are finding themselves defending the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) from U.S. Senators who want to pass a bill that would promote safety on Indian casinos at the same time that they examine whether the law that governs Indian casinos should be amended.
The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee last week introduced a bill that would address the high crime rates on reservations. One of its co-authors is Arizona Senator John McCain, who co-wrote IGRA in 1988. The committee was also looking at proposals for amending IGRA.
Another co-author is Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, who said the bill “requires the Justice Department to track and analyze data on human trafficking of Native Americans both in and outside Indian Country.” He says human trafficking is a problem on North Dakota reservations. Young Indian women and girls are among the most vulnerable to this crime in the United States, according to North Dakota’s Division of Criminal Investigation’s Internet Sex Crimes against Children Unit.
During hearings on the proposal, tribal casino operators found themselves playing defense on the 1988 law—and suggests that it has fundamental flaws that make tribal casinos “breeding grounds” for crime and human trafficking.
Piling onto this allegation was the recently appointed principal deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, John Tahsuda, who heads the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He declared, “The Department is mindful that, while gaming has great potential to improve economic conditions for tribal and non-tribal communities, it can also introduce new complications to communities, including a drain on local resources, increased traffic, visitation, and crime, such as drugs and prostitution.”
However, Jonedev Chaudhuri, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, countered that tribes have developed an expertise in regulating their operations. “While the NIGC is not aware of any data suggesting human trafficking is any more rampant in Indian gaming than any other large commercial activity with heavy customer movement, we recognize the industry’s strong regulatory structure that provides the agency an area of opportunity to support broader efforts to stamp out human trafficking,” he testified.
Other tribal representatives made the case that, thirty years after it was adopted, IGRA should not be tweaked, and that to do so could jeopardize the $31 billion industry that has grown up under it. They also insisted that any changes must include tribal involvement at the most basic level.
However, Ernie Stevens, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) called on the Senate to scrutinize how new forms of gaming, like online gaming, sports betting and daily fantasy sports, will impact tribal gaming.
He told lawmakers, “These activities pose both potential expansion opportunities and challenges to existing tribal gaming operations and tribal-state compact agreements.”
