Tribal gaming has an important part in the U.S. gambling industry, and they want to keep their role as leaders in the industry as regulation sweeps across the country. Jason Giles, executive direction of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), plays an important part in advocating for that role, and he spoke with our Becky Liggero Fontana about the challenges in their way at Sports Betting U.S.A.
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The gambling industry might not be where it is today without tribal gaming, and Giles is proud of it. “Indian Gaming really did spur the gambling revolution in this country,” he said. “The commercial industry fought with the tribal nations for a long time, tooth and nail, to prevent the expansion. It turned out it was the greatest thing for everybody involved. Nevada took off, Atlantic City’s coming back, more and more people were just frankly exposed to gambling.”
The repeal of PASPA in 2018 opened the flood gates to sports betting, but unfortunately for tribal groups, the new opportunity has been met with additional challenges. “So when the Supreme Court throws out a law as unconstitutional, you know, tribes, that means a lot to tribes, because we’re enshrined in the Constitution, and when laws change like that, it’s generally not for the better for tribes, but in this case it opened up new avenues of economic development, lots of questions, tribes wanted to know, can we immediately start doing it,” Giles said. “Now the ironic thing is, for the commercial side, they could start doing it the next day. I think Governor Christie said we’ll have it up and running in two weeks after the decision. Tribes, it’s not so easy, because we have these agreements with the states, these compacts that may or may not have to be renegotiated. Each state, each region of the country feels differently about gambling. We had to take our time, still taking our time digesting this, that’s why after the pass were ruling you only have four tribes that are actually doing sports betting right now.