Casa Grande Dispatch
The state of Arizona has a pretty successful relationship with several casinos on Indian reservations. Under state law and compacts with the tribes, there is a limitation on the number of casinos, and there is sharing of some revenue with governmental and nonprofit entities in the state.
Limiting the casinos to the sovereign reservations gives the tribes some needed revenue to benefit their people and spares the state from the effects of full-scale casino gambling elsewhere.
Now we learn that the Tohono O’odham Nation’s plan to add a casino on land it owns near Glendale has been in the works for years, despite the fact that the nation has casinos near Tucson, and Glendale is far from the reservation.
This plan predates the tribe’s public support for Proposition 202 in 2002, with its limit on the number of casinos. The Glendale casino would upset the compact arrangement and give fuel to constant calls for expanding gambling to non-Indian operators.
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks is sponsoring a bill in Congress to block the Glendale casino, with Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick as a cosponsor. Despite the bipartisan approach, the bill faces a tough road in the Democratic-controlled Senate. If it manages to make it through Congress, the bill would do much to prevent future casino problems.
