Santee tribe’s casino remains open despite six-year legal fight

Joe Ruff

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

NIOBRARA, Neb. -- Blue, red and white lights flash on the slot machines as they purr and trill in the Santee Sioux Tribe's Ohiya Casino just off Nebraska Highway 12 -- the only casino in the state.

Only a handful of people played on a recent weekday, several of them elderly. None of them high-rollers.

"I'm only playing nickels," said Carol Becker, 58, who drove an hour from Utica, S.D., to gamble at the casino five miles east of Niobrara.

"I'm not a good bettor," she said. "I'm kind of conservative."

Located in a blue and white former pharmaceutical plant, the casino from the outside looks more like an office building than a place of chance. A small gift shop in the lobby with belt buckles and sofa pillows with wildlife scenes greets visitors, who proceed into a large, dimly lit room ringed by about 60 slot machines with a 150-seat bingo hall in the back that generally draws 50 to games each Thursday through Sunday.

It is not what the tribe envisioned when it opened the casino in February 1996. That casino was in a former cafe 10 miles away in the town of Santee and it originally featured scores of video slot machines.

It brought in enough cash for the poverty-stricken tribe to employ 25 people and have money left over to supplement tribal programs, including medical care, education and fire protection.

However, state and federal authorities said the casino was illegal because Nebraska does not allow casino-style gambling, even though the state runs a lottery and allows local keno lotteries, pickle cards and horse racing.

The tribe has argued that casino-style gambling should be allowed under current law, state officials have not negotiated a gaming compact in good faith, and the tribe is a sovereign nation that does not need such a compact with the state.

The battle led to a federal order to shut down the casino, and $4 million in fines have been levied but not collected against the tribe for defying that order.

In response, the tribe in May 2001 installed the slot machines it uses now, which distribute pull tabs much like pickle cards. The tribe argues the machines are legal, and a federal judge has ruled the Santee can keep the machines and suspended the daily $6,000 fine.

However, the U.S. attorney's office in Nebraska has filed an appeal, claiming the new games are illegal.

In November the tribe moved the casino 10 miles south from a small metal building in Santee to a former pharmaceutical plant five miles east of Niobrara.

The casino now is more easily accessible. This month, the tribe opened a gas station on the site and it hopes to expand its casino cafeteria, which seats about 40 people and serves hamburgers and french fries, ice cream and luncheon specials, into a buffett-style restaurant. The tribe also wants to add a hotel and an outdoor amphitheater.

The pickle-card slot machines do not attract as many people as the old machines and the casino is bringing in only about half the proceeds it once did, said Thelma Thomas, the tribe's vice chairwoman and the casino's technical adviser.

Fifteen people now work at the casino, making an average of $7.50 an hour. Thomas said gambling proceeds no longer are high enough to funnel into social services.

In the absence of substantial government assistance, the tribe is doing what it can to allevate an unemployment rate of around 75 percent on the 1,000-member reservation, Thomas said.

"With gaming, we didn't ask for good roads or anything," Thomas said. "We just asked for a compact."