Indian Tribes Seek Approval For Off-Reservation Casinos
27 September 2005
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma plan to build a casino hotel complex in Downtown Pueblo, for which the tribes have requested that an "off-reservation" site be granted to them as the location for their fourth casino. The tribes have been struggling for years with Congress and the Department of the Interior to obtain more profitable urban property through land exchanges.
Indian gaming has grown rapidly since it was legalized in 1988, and now there are over 400 Indian-owned casinos and gaming halls across the United States. Originally, lawmakers thought that only small bingo halls and limited-stakes casinos would be operated by the tribes. They never dreamed that Indian casinos would become a $19 billion-a-year business.
Most Indian casinos are on reservation lands, but there are tribes that operate them off-reservation. The downtown Pueblo casino property requested by the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes is part of an effort to settle their indigenous land claims. At the moment, nine applications seeking approval for off-reservation casinos have been put before the National Indian Gaming Commission. So far, three of these projects have been approved.
Source: Authorized Online Casinos News Staff
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