After missing out on the grand prize, casinos may have still hit the jackpot
On Wednesday, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum rejected a proposal from North Dakota’s American Indian tribes that requested full control over future online betting in North Dakota.
It was an ambitious attempt.
One that didn’t work. Just last week I reported on North Dakota’s five tribes seeking exclusive rights to host internet gambling and sports betting. It was being proposed through a compact. Compacts go back to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 and they give the power to negotiate with the Governor’s office.
Following such a request, states are required to enter negotiations and deal with the tribes in “good faith”. The original text of the act implied that if states tried to “stone-wall” tribal gambling, the tribes could look to the federal courts for support.
So it was with good faith that all parties entered into negotiations. It seems the Governor’s team found the proposal to be overreaching as it sought to control activities outside the tribe’s established borders. Burgum said this in a statement…
“While we understand and appreciate the desire by some of the tribes to extend online gaming beyond their reservation boundaries, a clear legal path does not exist for the governor to grant such a broad expansion of gaming,”
The compact is set to expire at the end of the year so the time to renegotiate is now! So like any good sales proposal, the tribes first asked for everything. When that didn’t work out, they wisely went for a smaller victory.
A victory that should yield mighty fine results.
The state’s five American Indian casinos appealed to change the legal gambling age on their properties from 21 to 19 years of age. The governor appeared to bite on that one. In addition, the casinos want to let clients use debit or credit cards to bet. Doug and his crew appeared to have bitten on that as well. The proliferation of electronic tab machines all across the state has cost the casinos millions while North Dakota’s gambling tax revenue has doubled. Casinos are suffering while the state gets fatter.
So I guess we should consider dropping the age of casino gamers as “good faith”.
Somewhere in my head, that doesn’t seem like a positive plan. In pure making-money sense, it does make perfect sense. Young adults in and around reservations could then enjoy the same thrill their older gambling-addicted peers have been enjoying for years. Now, these compact changes are not yet complete. They’ll be reviewed by the state’s Legislative Management committee which is not empowered to change or reject them. So after they skim the compacts they’ll go to the U.S. Department of the Interior for further review. So who knows when and if this ever gets enacted? Before you get to feeling too sorry for the 19-year-olds that may be sitting at the slot machine next to you…
Doug did get each of the five tribes to pledge $25K for gambling addiction programs.
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