The Compacts Are Dead, The Compacts Are Dead!

Thread: Indian Gaming in the News

Big headlines last week, West Coast style. The proposed California compacts are dead – at least for the time being.

As the close of the state legislative session approached, Governor Schwarzenegger signed five compacts that would have dramatically changed the landscape of Indian gaming in California.

The compacts would have authorized the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians to triple the number of their slot machines, from 2,000 to as many as 7,500. (The “world’s largest casino” title currently resides with Connecticut’s Foxwoods casino.) The Sycuan Band would have allowed expansion to 5,000 slot machines, while the Yurok Tribe would have been authorized to operate 99 slot machines. The potential total? 22,500 new machines – a massive expansion of legalized gambling in the state, and a massive new revenue stream leading straight to state coffers.

With a flat fee on existing slot machines and a percentage cut on new machines generating as much as $22 billion for the state treasury through 2030, Schwarzenegger would have made good on his longstanding promise to provide a “fair deal” for the state of California. (We discuss the governor’s 2003 campaign rhetoric in our book, Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise, and show how it dovetails with a number of other pervasive perceptions of Indian gaming popularized by public officials and in the mainstream media.)

While the compacts for moment are waiting to be resurrected, the political and partisan finger-pointing is ongoing. Next time we’ll discuss the whys and wherefores of the compacts’ demise.