Casino Enterprise Management

The National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) is a non-profit organization of 184 Indian Nations with members and participants representing organizations, tribes, and businesses engaged in tribal gaming enterprises from around the country. Our members also represent several generations of Native people; generations that have seen difficult times and, more recently, great achievement.

In Indian Country, there are many like me—sons and daughters of a generation that had few opportunities, little education, and virtually no economic strength. Many of us today are living lives our parents, and certainly our grandparents, could not have imagined. However, it’s a life they dreamed of and a life they created a foundation for—a life of opportunity and prosperity across our reservations.

Consider this: In the 1960s, my father Ernest Stevens Sr. was one of the founding members of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. There were just a handful of Native-owned businesses back then. None were a Fortune 500 company, and none were expected by the outside world to become an economic powerhouse.

But my father and a small group of determined Indian leaders with foresight and motivation recognized Indian country’s entrepreneurial spirit, its promise, and its hope. Those first small steps stretched into huge economic leaps in ensuing years.

Today, NIGA, the organization I am proud to chair, represents a powerful economic force in Indian Country and in the United States. And although Native Americans have always played an important cultural role in history, we are only recently recognized as being crucial to the economic interests of our country.

NIGA’s analysis of the economic impact of Indian Gaming in 2006 tells an exciting story of successful, responsible growth, and promise. The numbers are truly astounding. In our recently released report, we found that Indian gaming generated more than $25.7 billion in gross revenues and provided more than 670,000 jobs to Indians and non-Indians alike.

Another $3.2 billion was generated in gross revenue from related hospitality and entertainment services; $8.6 billion was paid in federal taxes and revenue; $2.4 billion in state taxes, revenue sharing, and regulatory payments; and more than $100 million was paid to local governments.

Even as we release these numbers, we realize we are telling a story that is constantly changing. Each and every day, tribes across this country create more jobs and fuel the economies of their states, and the nation, while building new schools, health clinics, housing, police and fire protection, and the many infrastructure needs of their communities.

As economic change has occurred, corporate culture has changed with it. Corporate entities that once didn’t know tribes existed are now becoming our business partners. For example, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation has a strategic alliance with MGM MIRAGE to develop a $700 million destination hotel/casino resort adjacent to Foxwoods.

In November, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in California announced the sale of $230 million in private placement bonds to 20 institutional investors across the United States, which will fund the construction of a new luxury hotel.

Perhaps most astounding is the Seminole Tribe’s $965 million purchase of Hard Rock International early this year. It is the first time an American Indian Tribe has ever purchased a major international corporation, and we believe it will not be the last.

Recently, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Comerica, IGT, GLI, Multimedia, Bally’s, Harrah’s, Coca-Cola, IBM, and many successful Indian-owned businesses all played major roles in our annual meeting and trade show by showcasing new developments in tribal financing, resort development, and other economic diversification efforts. 

But when I measure change, I am perhaps most proud of what has happened to the small, Native-owned businesses that my father and many other tribal leaders worked so hard to promote more than 40 years ago.

Last June, the U.S. Census Bureau found that 201,387 small businesses owned and operated by American Indians ­grossed almost $27 billion—that is in addition to tribal government enterprises. Could my father and his colleagues have imagined this?

Like most sons who respect and love their fathers, I measure my life by his. I am ever mindful to look at what my father and my mother did with little means, and the comparison continually inspires me to do more and try harder.

As Indian Country grows as an economic force, we must not forget the generations that have come before us, the tribes that still struggle, and the generations to come. Our success came from those first important, brave steps. Those steps have led to an endless world of opportunity, both in terms of our economic development and strength across Indian Country, and our need to preserve and promote our unique cultural history.

We must continue to walk in the path forged by our elders. We must continue to imagine the impossible and make those images a reality.

Ernie Stevens Jr. is the Chair of the National Indian Gaming Association and a member of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin. He can be reached at (202) 546-7711.