Move over, Nevada - Indian gambling looms in California

Michelle DeArmond

Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000 | 10:31 a.m.

LOS ANGELES - Sunny images of schoolchildren, homes and a health clinic flash across the TV screen as a solemn tribal leader asks voters to give Indian gambling a thumbs-up one more time.

Jobs and other benefits will be lost, he warns, if a constitutional amendment making Indian gambling legal isn't approved on March 7.

His grave tone belies an anticlimactic end to the state's battle over Indian gambling. In 1998, the two sides spent $88 million, the nation's most expensive campaign.

This time, the initiative has barely cracked $20 million. The tribes are expected to emerge victorious with rights to form possibly the most lucrative gambling market in the country.

The ballot measure will make California "one of the largest gambling states, if not the largest," said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming in Reno, Nev.

"For all practical purposes, they will be comparable to Nevada casinos, with the exception of Las Vegas," he said.

Approval of the ballot measure, Proposition 1A, authorizes the governor to negotiate gambling compacts with federally recognized tribes to run slot machines and card games on California Indian reservations. Unlike a change in law voters approved in 1998 that was struck down as unconstitutional, the new version will actually amend the state Constitution.

Compacts have already been signed with 57 of the state's more than 100 tribes and are expected to go into effect if the measure passes. Last year, one tribe joined forces with a Las Vegas gambling company to begin building a $90 million casino near San Diego.

Palm Springs, the popular tourist destination known for its warm, dry weather and ritzy resorts, is expected to become the state's gambling capital as tribes there renovate and expand existing facilities.

According to Davis, the gambling compacts would allow 43,000 slot machines, more than double the current 20,000. Legislative analysts said the number could rise to 113,000.

Nevada casinos, which spent $25.7 million fighting the 1998 initiative for fear of the competition, have 200,000 slot machines by comparison.

The out-of-state gambling interests have been remarkably quiet this time. So have labor unions, which fought the tribes for the right to organize workers at tribal casinos.

Under the Davis compacts, labor unions will have access to tribal casinos. Nevada casinos have tried to cut their losses. Rather than campaigning against competition, Mandalay Bay and other casinos are exploring the option of joining forces with tribes to run their casinos.

The tribes aren't taking anything for granted.

California Indians have run a series of slick TV ads using part of the $20.7 million in loans and contributions they have received.

"The tribes can't afford to be complacent," said Waltona Manion, spokeswoman for the Yes on Prop 1A campaign. If the measure fails, tribes will face economic devastation and California taxpayers will suffer because of the loss of tribal jobs, she said.

Opponents have raised just $44,207, with half of that money coming from in-kind donations. The loose group of anti-gambling advocates and church groups doesn't have enough money to pay for TV or radio ads.

They warn that casinos will cost government money in law enforcement and support to gambling addicts. State Assemblyman Bruce Thompson, a Republican from Fallbrook, is urging voters to keep "the Golden State from becoming the casino state."

He was one of only four legislators to vote against the compacts.

Analysts predict Indian gambling could bring the tribes nearly $5 billion a year - more than three times the current $1.5 billion.

"I think it is the most radical change in the public policy of this state in 100 years," said I. Nelson Rose, a gambling expert and law professor at Whittier College. "We have had a policy of complete prohibition. Now we are switching to a policy of not just permission, but endorsement and promotion."