Indian Gaming; Healthy Or Not For California?

Sacramento, CA — California´s American Indian tribes have contributed $543 million to state and local funds to mitigate the effects of their rapidly expanding industry.

But a state report on gambling says the social costs of the industry are much higher. The report was compiled by the California Research Bureau.

It says the tribes´ payments totaled about 9% of four years´ worth of revenues at the 56 casinos they operated in 2004. Revenues at the tribal casinos were an estimated $17 billion between 2001 and 2004.

Nearly all the money went into two funds intended to mitigate the effects of tribal gambling. One fund gives money to tribes that don´t have casinos and the other fund allocates revenue to local governments to offset their increased costs of doing business.