It appears things could go either way here in California, but the potential is there for someone.
Indian Gambling Under Fire
.c The Associated Press
By MICHELLE DeARMOND
LOS ANGELES (AP) - In the TV commercial, a young couple jogging with a baby in a stroller stop, aghast. The ground rumbles and sprouts toward towering neon signs: ''Casino-rama,'' ''Slots Casino,'' and finally, ''Casino California.''
The bleak landscape in the advertisement suggests that a ballot initiative to legalize outlawed forms of gambling on Indian reservations would turn Main Street California into a tawdry imitation of Las Vegas.
The ad campaign comes from unlikely allies: churches and Nevada casinos. They're locked in an ad war with state Indian tribes, who are not about to be outgunned.
By the most recent reporting deadline, the tribes had raised $24.6 million to support the initiative. The casinos and churches had spent $1.2 million fighting it.
The tribes have financed their own costly ad campaign in support of Proposition 5 primarily through profits from reservation casinos. The tribes say casinos are their financial lifeblood, but the state says they are illegal.
''This is an assault,'' said Waltona Manion, spokeswoman for the tribal alliance known as Californians for Indian Self-Reliance. ''Just as a century ago enemies of the tribes used U.S. cavalry to come in and take away (the Indians') lives and their land, today they're using TV commercials.''
In the alliance's TV ad, tribe member Roxanne Meyers tells viewers ''we're pulling our weight and paying our own way'' and implores voters to ''stand with us against the big Nevada casinos.''
The initiative on November's ballot would allow California's 112 Indian reservations to build casinos on their land offering slot machines, lotteries, card games and other gambling.
Proposition 5's rules would replace a restrictive agreement that Gov. Pete Wilson negotiated with the Pala tribe in San Diego County and is pressing as a statewide model.
Fewer than half of the state's reservations have casinos. All but a few are operating without an agreement with the governor, as required under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
The Nevada casinos say they want to ensure unregulated gambling doesn't give the industry a black eye.
''We have competitive concerns, but we have consistently opposed gambling which is discriminatory or that does not involve careful regulation,'' said Mike Sloan, vice president of Circus Circus Enterprises.
''This is not really an Indian issue, per se, as much as it is an issue of regulation,'' said Alan Feldman, spokesman for Mirage Resorts, Inc.
A report by Bear Stearns & Co. predicts that if the initiative passes, Las Vegas casinos would lose between 6.5 percent and 7 percent of their revenues - $258 million to $300 million - during the first year or two. The Reno-Lake Tahoe market would lose up to 16 percent.
So it's not surprising that the opposition campaign's big spenders are Nevada casinos and California card clubs.
Mirage gave $150,000, and Circus Circus, with properties including the Luxor and Excalibur hotel-casinos on the Vegas Strip, gave $100,000 by June 30.
Caesars ITT, owner of Caesars hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip; Primadonna, which has properties on the California-Nevada line; and Hilton Hotels Corp., which has two Las Vegas properties, each contributed $200,000.
The tribes, by contrast, have funneled multimillion-dollar contributions and loans to the tribal alliance. The San Manuel Indians loaned the coalition $9 million and donated $1.1 million. The Morongo Band of Mission Indians loaned $9.3 million, and the Viejas gave $3 million.
It's money well spent, said Daniel Tucker, chairman of Californians for Indian Self-Reliance.
''The cost of this campaign (is) significantly less than the lives and land that Indians have paid in the past,'' he said. ''They pale in relation to the consequence of returning Indian tribes to a life of poverty, illiteracy and welfare handouts.''
AP-NY-08-06-98 0453EDT |
