The Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming, which owns and operates the Wind River Hotel and Casino announced October 14 that it would be creating a regulatory framework to operate sports betting at the casino.
“Well-regulated sports betting is an excellent way to make the gaming experience even better for our customers at the Wind River Hotel & Casino and each of our gaming establishments,” said Brian Van Enkenvoort, chief executive officer of the casino, in a statement. “This is truly an amenity that sports fans can’t find anyplace else in Wyoming.”
The tribe sees sports betting as a way to protect itself from the encroachments of slot-machine look-a-likes that are called “games of skill.” The state legislature recently brought these games, which although illegal, had proliferated like wildflowers, under the regulatory umbrella by creating a gaming commission.
Stephen Fast Horse, a member of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, told the Casper Star Tribune, “As we got into the state legislative session and saw the state was making a turn, we realized this was something that could threaten our business,” said Stephen Fast Horse, a member of the Northern Arapaho Business Council. “So at that time we had to seriously start moving the ball because gaming is something that’s very important to the economy of the reservation since we don’t have a tax base. We get a lot of our revenues from our gaming business. That was probably the biggest fire being lit underneath us at that time.”
Since the tribe is sovereign it doesn’t need to abide by state law, which hasn’t yet addressed sports betting, something that has been legalized in several states since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the federal ban on it in 2018.
Fast Horse said his tribe will largely mirror the sports betting system used by the Mississippi Choctaw, which became the first tribe to take advantage of the court decision that same year.
Fast Horse added, “We’d also like the state to seriously consider us as partners, because we’ve been the experts in Wyoming,” said Fast Horse. “And we are Wyoming natives. We don’t want our gaming operations to be outsourced by other entities that have no investment or no livelihood here in Wyoming. We prefer Wyoming to do it themselves.”
