How tribal gaming impacts Arizona’s economy: 15K jobs, $1.81 billion

While casino revenues in Arizona are still below their pre-recession peak, they are on the rise again.

And projects and developments begun over the course of nearly 30 years of Indian gaming in the state are helping to increase the quality of economic life and the business connections between the tribes and other Arizona communities, according to a new report.

“We’ve always been a farming community,” Ak-Chin Indian Community chairman Louis Manuel Jr. said. Gaming has provided the opportunities for development and the creation of jobs, he said.

Fostering new jobs and tribal economic self-sufficiency are among the major ways tribal gaming influences Arizona’s economy, according to the report by the Arizona Indian Gaming Association.

Casinos do their part, the gaming-association report said, by attracting day visitors and tourists from Arizona and from out of state. Revenue from Indian gaming has far-reaching effects: Not only do tribes spend locally; they also contribute to statewide funds that support trauma and emergency care, public-school instruction, wildlife conservation and tourism.

The report, “The Economic Impact of Tribal Gaming in Arizona 2014,” was conducted to assess the impact of Indian gaming in light of the Great Recession, said Valerie Spicer, director of the non-profit gaming association.

“It reconfirmed what I was hoping,” Spicer said. “Tribal gaming has made an unparalleled difference in tribes and their ability to provide to their people.”

According to the report, which is slated to be released to the public Friday, statewide tribal gaming revenue hit $1.81 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2014, about the same as in 2012, when a similar report was compiled.

Revenue is down from 2007, when it peaked at $1.94 billion, but is on the way to recovery, the report states. Revenue for April-June 2015 is up 4.5 percent compared with the same three months of 2014, Spicer said.

Among the report’s findings:

Tribal gaming creates jobs for about 15,000 Arizonans, a majority of whom are non-Indian. That means tribal gaming operations employ more people in Arizona than fast-food giant McDonald’s and have about half as many workers as Walmart in the state.

Nearly 3,300 hotel rooms and almost 100 restaurants accompany tribal casinos.

Arizona tribes share part of their gaming revenues with the state, towns, cities and counties. More than $1 billion has been contributed since 2002.

In fiscal year 2014, tribes gave nearly $100 million to the state and local governments. Of that, $11.1 million was given to cities, towns and counties. Some tribes donated more than they were required to. One example cited in the report was the Ak-Chin Community, which in 2013 pledged $7.4 million to the town of Maricopa toward operating costs of the town’s Copper Sky Recreational Complex.

Through gaming, tribes have become self-reliant and innovative in other ways that include judicial reform and elder care, according to the report, which was written by Jonathan Taylor, an economist specializing in gaming, American Indian development and natural resources. He is president of Taylor Policy Group Inc., based in Sarasota, Fla.

Plus, creating jobs is especially critical on reservations, where unemployment runs high.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the unemployment rate among Arizona's Native Americans was 22.2 percent in 2013. At the time, Arizona had the highest number of unemployed Native Americans and the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country, according to the survey.

Beneficiaries include the likes of Mary Kimball, who in search of a summer job found one in the marketing department at the Ak-Chin Indian Community's new entertainment center.

A Montessori teacher for the rest of the year, Kimball had never considered marketing as a profession.

It didn’t take her long to discover it was her dream job. The Maricopa resident now works full time at the sprawling UltraStar Multi-tainment Center at Ak-Chin Circle. The center, which features a cinema, bowling alley and restaurants, is near Harrah’s Ak-Chin Hotel and Casino and is one of several new developments on the Ak-Chin Reservation, 30 miles south of Phoenix.

The entertainment center came as a direct result of tribal gaming. Gaming also made possible other new facilities on the tribe's land, including a judicial center, a wastewater/sewage plant and a state-of-the-art fire station.

Before tribal gaming, Arizona tribes were “heavily dependent, if not solely reliant, on government programs,” the gaming association's Spicer said.

She added that casinos have given tribes options, allowing them to provide for their people in creative ways.

One way is by subsidizing business development, from office parks and outlet malls to hotels and entertainment destinations.

The Ak-Chin Indian Community's pledge to help with operating costs of Maricopa's Copper Sky Recreational Complex entertainment center is one example. It — and the UltraStar complex — also are indicative of how tribes are working with neighboring towns and cities.?

“It’s an incredible example,” Spicer said of the three-year-old UltraStar Multi-tainment center. “They have done a great job, not only (giving) to their community, but to Maricopa.”

The center is a hangout place for local kids, whether from the Ak-Chin Indian Community or the town, she said. Before the center, they had nowhere to go, she said.

Adam Saks, the entertainment center's general manager and chief operating officer, said, “The thing we hear over and over again is, ‘We know where our children are now.’”

Growth on the Salt River reservation

Like the Ak-Chin Indian Community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community also has experienced strong development.

The tribe’s cultural and entertainment destinations near Scottsdale include the Talking Stick Resort, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, two hotels, a golf course, the Pavilions at Talking Stick shopping mall and Butterfly Wonderland. Another venue, OdySea Aquarium, is under construction.

“You can tell by the growth what gaming has done,” said Blessing McAnlis-Vasquez, a tribal member who is in charge of tourism marketing for the tribe, specifically promoting its nine cultural and entertainment destinations.

“It’s brought not only jobs but careers,” she said.

She is an example: After graduating from college, where she studied marketing and communications, she got a job as an advertising coordinator at Casino Arizona, then moved on to other jobs there and at Talking Stick Resort before getting her current job. It’s a position that never would have been created if it hadn’t been for tribal gaming, she said.

McAnlis-Vasquez’s experience also has prompted her to start a small business.

“When I was at the casino and resort, I noticed we were ordering a lot of print and promotional materials,” she said. So she opened her own promotional products company, 101 Creative Solutions.

Besides entertainment centers, tribal business development includes health facilities — such as a new hospital on the San Carlos Reservation — and fire departments equipped with the latest technology.

Before the advent of these fire departments, some buildings in remote places burned down before fire personnel from neighboring communities could arrive, Spicer said.

Economic challenges remain

Arizona’s 23 Indian casinos are operated by 16 of the state’s 22 Indian tribes, under a state-tribal agreement that is governed by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. Five other tribes, many of them based on remote reservations, lease slot-machine rights with casinos in larger markets.

Although the Navajo Nation signed a compact with the state in 2004, it’s the newest to tribal gaming, having opened up its first casino in May 2013 as a way to create new revenue. One tribe, the Hopi, does not operate a casino or lease device rights. Tribes with casinos contribute 1 to 8 percent of their gross gaming revenue to the state, cities, towns and counties. As part of their agreement with the state, details on gaming revenue by tribe are not made public. Spicer said that while gaming has helped tribes come a long way, the progress must continue.

The number of jobs created is just a start, she said. More are needed, including quality jobs for the increasing numbers of college graduates on the reservations, she said.

“Tribal unemployment is very high in comparison to all races all across the country,” she said.

Health issues, in particular diabetes, are another concern, Spicer said. New health facilities on reservations make it easier for many tribal members, who no no longer have to pack a lunch, get on a bus and spend the day going to the doctor, she said.

“Tribal gaming dollars are helping that, but there is still a long way to go,” she said.

Reach the reporter at sue.doerfler@arizonarepublic.com.