Governors discuss growing Indian gambling industry

Colleen Slevin

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 | 9:39 a.m.

DENVER -- Amid growing conflicts between the $20 billion Indian casino business and state governments, Western governors and tribal leaders gathered in Colorado Tuesday to take a close look at the industry.

"We want tribes to develop economically but we want to balance that with other gaming and economic development opportunities," South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds said at the opening of a two-day meeting of the Western Governors Association.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens said Western states need to look at the proliferating Indian gambling business, with Congress considering changes to the 1988 federal law that allowed tribes to open casinos.

Neither the association nor Owens, the group's chairman, has advocated specific changes in the law. Owens' spokesman, Dan Hopkins, said the governors' meeting could result in some recommendations for changes.

The governors and representatives of 23 tribes plan to discuss the rapid expansion of Indian gambling, off-reservation casinos, federal laws and new technology that could affect federal regulations.

Keller George, president of the United South and Eastern Tribes, a confederation of 24 Indian tribes from Florida to Maine and from South Carolina to Texas, said he is concerned about out-of-state tribes claiming land and building casinos with the financial backing of developers.

"The bottom line for the developers is money, but the bottom line for tribes is to advance the people," said George, a member of New York's Oneida Indian Nation and a member of the commission that runs the Turning Stone Casino and Resort.

In Colorado, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma have proposed a $150 million casino and cultural center on 500 acres near Denver International Airport northeast of the city. The tribes have said they would relinquish a treaty-based claim on 27 million acres in Colorado if the state acquiesces to their plan.

Owens opposes the plan.

The state constitution requires any new gambling projects to be approved by voters, but Owens has accused the developer behind the project of trying to bypass the law by courting his support and that of the federal Interior Department.

Colorado voters have turned down three attempts in the past decade to extend gambling beyond three mountain towns where it is legal. Gambling also is legal on the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute reservations in southern Colorado.

South Dakota also has concerns about casinos, Rounds said.

Gambling has helped tribes in state, he said, but he wants to ensure Indian casinos don't conflict with the state's video lottery game.

Rounds also said Indian casinos are not subject to state or local zoning rules and taxes unless tribes chose to contract with the state.

The Western Governors Association consists of the chief executives of 18 states plus Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.