The History of the Native American Gaming Industry

The Native American gaming industry today is what many would consider something of a "hot" topic. So I'd like to help clarify the issue. First I'd like to tell you about why Native Americans turned to the gaming industry, and then I'd like to cover the benefits, and downsides of the industry.

During the westward expansion of the United States, Indians were seen as a hindrance to Americans, and an unfortunate interruption to the fulfillment of America's manifest destiny of the 19th century. Eventually the United States had conquered all of what is now the continental US, legally making native Americans a defeated nation.

As reparations for the treaties broken by the US during the annexation of the western territories, those Native American tribes that had not assimilated into American society were given plots of land known as reservations. But the reservations tended to have very few natural resources and little way of bringing money in for the tribe.

According to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, in 1990 there was a 48.8% poverty rate in Indian reservations and reservations had the "highest rates of poverty, unemployment, welfare dependency, school dropout, alcoholism, and other indicators of poverty and social distress of any communities in the U.S." So of course there were many benefits to bringing in a big money maker like casinos. First off, it brought in jobs, and is in fact the fastest growing job market on Indian reservations to date.

Along with job opportunities it also brought money, and lots of it. Much of this money is put towards reservation projects, according to the American journal of economics and sociology these projects included "improved housing, educational scholarship, medical clinics, repurchase of reservation land held by non-Indians and the establishment of industrial parks for new business opportunities."