Commercialized gambling is based on getting people to lose far more than they can afford. One common tactic is to get citizens to chase their losses. Casinos like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun often lend gamblers money interest-free because they know the players will inevitably gamble away all the money back to the casino. Then the casinos demand to be paid back for the money they lent! It’s a state-sanctioned business practice, often ensnaring people’s homes.. These two articles from WPRI (RI) and The Boston Globe describe the situation.
Native American Casinos
Small businesses in the food and beverage industry hurt by surrounding casinos
Casinos negatively impact small businesses in the surrounding area, especially those in the food and beverage industry. This article from Indian Gaming helps to explain the casino strategy to subsidize food and drink costs with gambling profits to help boost the overall revenues from gambling, which hurts small businesses around the casinos and helps lure players into the casino.
Casino-owning tribes still subsidized by US government while financial backers see immense profits
Casinos were supposed to generate billions of dollars of revenue for Native American tribes, allowing them to be independent of taxpayer-funded federal subsidies. However, while their financial backers reap heavy profits, the casino tribes have yet to see the revenue they need and are thus still reliant on money from the US government. This article, by the Niagara Gazette, documents one tribe’s struggle to gain the profits the casino was built to raise.
2013 Casino-owning tribes betting on help from the US government
Payday Lenders and Indian Tribes Evading Laws Draw Scrutiny
Due to sovereign immunity, the legal doctrine that restricts state interference in tribal affairs, many partnerships between Native American Tribes and federal regulators are being put under the microscope. These partnerships are drawing a lot of scrutiny given their allowance of predatory lending and finding loopholes in federal laws.
Consumer Bureau ‘Zoning In’ on Tribal Payday Lending Firms
The U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is cracking down on players hiding behind Native American sovereign immunity. These players are abusing the power to run casinos in states where gambling is otherwise illegal, and also distributing payday loans in illegal areas.
Foxwoods Casino Targets Repeat Gamblers
We know from Wall Street Journal reporter Christina Binkley that casinos make 90% of their profits from 10% of their customers. So, it’s no surprise that Connecticut’s Foxwoods Casino has developed a new business strategy to entice it’s “loyal” customers to gamble more of their money away, particularly those “customers living within 90 minutes of the…property.”
Native American Tribes and Payday Lenders Partnering to Avoid Oversight
To help “broaden” their portfolio, some Native American tribes are now partnering with pay day lenders to allow such companies to circumvent state laws in nearly 20 states, according to a recent report by the Center for Public Integrity.
Well-intended people have been talking about alternate economic solutions for Native American tribes for more than twenty years. Yet there is no sense of urgency for these Native American tribes to change their predatory business partnerships and, as evidenced by their entrance into the payday lending arena, the situation is getting worse.
Fights over tribal payday lenders show challenges of financial reform
An Examination of Indian Casinos in Western New York
This report suggests that an expanded casino in the Buffalo-area will be a “huge money-sucking vacuum” for a city already struggling with high poverty. It was presented to the Legislation Committee of the Buffalo Common Council by Professor Steve H. Siegel, of the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Niagara University.
How Casino Gambling Worsens Buffalo’s Urban Poverty Crisis
The Partnership for the Public Good in Buffalo, New York published this policy brief which examines how the Buffalo Creek Casino exacerbates the city’s urban poverty crisis.
Time Magazine Investigation of Indian Casinos: Wheel of Misfortune
This Time Magazine cover story investigates the levels of fraud, corruption and intimidation in America’s Indian casinos. The writers also highlight that the tribes’ “secrecy about financial affairs – and the complicity of government oversight agencies – has guaranteed that abuses in Indian country growing out of the surge in gambling riches go undetected, unreported and unprosecuted.”