Kathryn’s Quoted in this Article – and Gives Important Context

Thread: Indian Gaming in the News

Kathryn is quoted in this June 21 article by Rick Armon that appeared in the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal. The article discusses the most recent edition of economist Alan Meister’s take on the national economic impact of Indian gaming. What’s significant about Kathryn’s response to being asked to comment on these figures – which generally track the trajectory of what the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) and the National Indian Gaming Association say about tribal gaming – is the context she adds to Indian gaming’s seeming across-the-board success.

As Kathryn notes, everyone is aware that Indian gaming “is flourishing in terms of national profits.” But just focusing on the total – in excess of $22 billion in 2005, according to Meister’s study – obscures an enormous variation in tribal experiences with Indian gaming.

In a forthcoming article in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, we discuss the NIGC’s latest national economic impact figures (again, similar to the numbers discussed in the Beacon Journal), which illuminate what we call Indian gaming’s “spectrum of success.” Hence the rest of Kathryn’s quote in the Beacon Journal, in which she observes that across the U.S., “some tribes are making phenomenal profits . . . and there are other tribes that are barely in the black.”

Feel free to take a look at the NIGC figures. You’ll begin to get a idea why it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to see the entire tribal gaming industry as one big, monolithic entity.

We’ll post more on the spectrum of success soon.