Lawmakers Vow To Stop National Indian Lottery Legislation Includes Moratorium On New Indian Gambling
Days after the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe announced plans for a national lottery, lawmakers said Friday they will try to bar it as part of legislation that also would set a two-year moratorium on new Indian gambling.
Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., said the measure would restore states’ power to regulate gambling on tribal lands, which was effectively removed by a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that tribes were not subject to state gambling regulations.
“We have seen created 296 Indian casinos in a $7 1/2 billion industry that is untaxed, unregulated and out of control,” Torricelli said.
Torricelli said state lotteries would be undermined by Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Tribe conducting a national lottery using toll-free phone calls and credit cards in the 36 states and District of Columbia where lotteries are permitted.
The legislation would require each state’s consent for participation in a national lottery.
David Matheson, gaming manager for the Coeur d’Alenes, said the tribe plans to meet with states that operate lotteries, as well as other tribes, to discuss joint efforts.
Matheson emphasized that the nationwide lottery could end tribal reliance on tax dollars. He called the latest effort to stop it an example of the “politics of greed.”
“The nation’s gaming interests in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and their friends in Congress will try again to take food and milk from the mouths of Indian children,” Matheson said. “They will use their influence to bring down the weight of Congress to crush the dreams of a small tribe in North Idaho. We seek no more than to legally use the same tool others are using.”
Although the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation is within her district, Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, supports the legislation.
“The question is on a state’s right to control industries which operate within its borders. The tribe is clearly trying to supercede those rights, as well as hindering other states’ lotteries,” she said.
“Granting sole rights to operate a national lottery to one tribe also qualifies as an unfair advantage being bestowed by the federal government.”
Tribal chairman Ernest Stensgar reacted strongly to Chenoweth’s comments.
“At the very least her comments are paternalistic,” Stensgar said. “and at the very worst they threaten the economic well-being of her very own Idaho constituency.”
The National Indian Lottery would create 300 jobs in its early stages, he added, benefiting non-Indians as well.
The measure supported by Chenoweth also would require federal background checks of Indian gambling officials, and apply to tribal gaming the reporting and bookkeeping laws that govern other casinos.
Torricelli, whose state along with Nevada offers casino gambling, said Indian gaming spends only $3 million for 24 staff members, compared to $60 million and 985 employees for Nevada and New Jersey regulatory authorities.
He said organized crime could take advantage of the tribes despite Justice Department officials’ testimony during hearings last year that little evidence exists of mob infiltration.