California's Tribal Casinos - Part 1

When most people think of gambling, they think of Las Vegas. And it’s no wonder. There are a lot of places to lose your money in Vegas. There are 75 legitimate casinos (those with 15 or more slots or table games) in Sin City alone if you include the 45 on the Strip and the ones on the Boulder Strip. 

Here’s a fun fact. The Strip is not actually located in the city of Las Vegas. The 4.2 mile stretch of hotels and casinos south of Las Vegas city limits is actually located in the unincorporated towns of Paradise and Winchester. The famous Las Vegas sign is not in Las Vegas either. It was constructed in 1959 exactly 4.5 miles outside the city limits.

Las Vegas is located in Clark County, which encompasses all of Southern Nevada. Clark County has 176 casinos, and last year those 176 businesses took in $9.5 billion in gaming revenue. If you like numbers Steve Beauregard has extracted figures for you from the NV State Gaming Control Board’s report. If you are interested, take a look at them here at gamboool.com

As for me, I’m more interested in the 479 Native American Casinos that 500 Nations tells me are owned by 244 of the nation’s 565 federally recognized tribes and operate in 28 of our 50 states. I’m especially interested in the twenty-one located in Riverside and San Diego counties in Southern California, just a short drive from where I live. 

Did you ever wonder why California has so many Native American casinos — and NONE that aren’t owned by the tribes? Here’s a little history lesson to help us understand.

California law banned all gambling from the time CA became a state. There were games of chance in the Golden State - just not legal ones. Over the years voters gradually modified the law, authorizing various types of wagering. Horse racing in 1933. Bingo games for charitable purposes in 1976. The California Lottery through the passage of Prop 37 in 1984. Importantly, Proposition 37 also amended the State constitution to specifically prohibit “casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey.”

So how did gambling become the mega-industry it is today in CA, when the state constitution was amended to specifically forbid it? Look no further than the passage of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) four years later.

To understand the history of Indian casinos in CA, you need to understand a little about how tribes and tribal rights are viewed in the United States. Indian tribes possess a special status under US law, known as Tribal Sovereignty. According to the US Constitution, the federal government reserved the power to regulate commerce with three groups: with foreign nations, among the various states, and with Indian tribes. Two Supreme Court decisions in 1831 and 1832 determined that the tribes were independent political communities with original natural rights that preceded European colonization — rights with which no state could interfere.

In the early 1980’s the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, like many other tribes, was seeking a way to lift itself out of extreme poverty. The tribe turned to operating bingo games and poker halls as a way of earning revenue. A short time later, the Indio police and the Riverside County sheriff raided and shut down the ventures. The tribe sued in federal court in 1987 and won. 

The court said that if state law criminally prohibits a form of gambling, then the tribe within the state cannot engage in that activity. However, if state law civilly regulates a form of gambling, then the tribes within the state may engage in that gaming free of state control. In essence the court formally recognized the right to conduct gaming operations on tribal lands as long as such games were not criminally prohibited by the state. (CA approved Bingo games ten years earlier - Hmm, I wonder… Could there be a connection between the little bingo cards you frequently see on Class II NA slots and that fact? Perhaps so. We’ll talk about Class II slots next time.)

After the Cabazon ruling was handed down in 1987, state governments, frustrated by their lack of authority over tribal activities, appealed to Congress to give them more power over tribal gaming.  The result was the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA). States lobbied vigorously for IGRA and for the compacting provisions of the law over tribal objections. Contrary to popular perception, IGRA did not expand the power of tribal governments. In fact it curtailed tribal power by giving state government unprecedented authority over tribal gaming activities, requiring the tribes to negotiate agreements with states in order to engage in casino-style gaming activities.

So does any of this have anything to do with the games we play today? If you gamble at any of the 479 Native American casinos in the US, it does. We will be discussing more about tribal gaming and the three classifications of slot games under IGRA in the next section. Stay tuned.