5.15.07Lack of standards could cost millions
By James P. Sweeney
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
SACRAMENTO – The chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission yesterday warned that the absence of federal standards in Indian casinos could attract crime and cost tribes untold millions of dollars.
The future without the internal operating rules, which were invalidated by federal courts, “will be a time of some uncertainty and doubt,” Chairman Philip Hogen said in remarks prepared for the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.
“Operations without effective internal controls and oversight will, once again, become obvious targets for the unscrupulous,” Hogen predicted. “Those tribes . . . will lose millions of dollars and often not realize that it has happened until years later.”
Federal courts invalidated what are known as “minimum internal control standards.” The guidelines set standards for the security at casinos, including cash handling, cage and credit operations, internal audits, surveillance and the games – from technical requirements to how often decks of cards should be changed.
Since the ruling became final last year, Hogen has been on a crusade to persuade Congress to restore the commission's authority to impose and enforce the rules for all Indian casinos.
In California, the loss of the federal standards has become a sticking point blocking ratification of five new tribal agreements, or compacts, that promise 22,500 more slots and another major gambling expansion in Southern California.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger negotiated the pending deals last year with Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula and three other big gaming tribes. The agreements would run for 23 years and pay the state a larger cut of gaming revenues, up to 25 percent from some machines.
But Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat who chairs the Governmental Organization Committee, has questioned the state's ability to regulate the casinos and assure the state's share of revenues without the federal standards in place.
Torrico sparred repeatedly with an attorney for the governor and the chairman of the California Gambling Control Commission.
Sylvia Cates, deputy legal affairs secretary for the governor, and Dean Shelton, the state commission chairman, both said California's compacts require operating rules similar and, in some cases, identical to the federal standards.
Moreover, most tribes have adopted rules at least equal to the federal rules, Cates said.
The state has requested $1.7 million and 14 added positions in the new budget to expand its field presence and begin the transition from federal to state enforcement of the rules.
But, if the state has ample oversight authority, Torrico asked, why is it pushing tribes to accept a new administrative regulation that would require all gaming tribes to comply with standards at least as stringent as the federal rules? Why also, he asked, has the governor implored Congress to restore the federal rules?
“My goal is to ratify these compacts,” Torrico said at the end of the hearing. “But none of the compacts will be ratified until this issue and the others I have mentioned before are addressed fully.”
Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070515-9999-1n15casinos.html
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
SACRAMENTO – The chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission yesterday warned that the absence of federal standards in Indian casinos could attract crime and cost tribes untold millions of dollars.
The future without the internal operating rules, which were invalidated by federal courts, “will be a time of some uncertainty and doubt,” Chairman Philip Hogen said in remarks prepared for the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.
“Operations without effective internal controls and oversight will, once again, become obvious targets for the unscrupulous,” Hogen predicted. “Those tribes . . . will lose millions of dollars and often not realize that it has happened until years later.”
Federal courts invalidated what are known as “minimum internal control standards.” The guidelines set standards for the security at casinos, including cash handling, cage and credit operations, internal audits, surveillance and the games – from technical requirements to how often decks of cards should be changed.
Since the ruling became final last year, Hogen has been on a crusade to persuade Congress to restore the commission's authority to impose and enforce the rules for all Indian casinos.
In California, the loss of the federal standards has become a sticking point blocking ratification of five new tribal agreements, or compacts, that promise 22,500 more slots and another major gambling expansion in Southern California.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger negotiated the pending deals last year with Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula and three other big gaming tribes. The agreements would run for 23 years and pay the state a larger cut of gaming revenues, up to 25 percent from some machines.
But Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat who chairs the Governmental Organization Committee, has questioned the state's ability to regulate the casinos and assure the state's share of revenues without the federal standards in place.
Torrico sparred repeatedly with an attorney for the governor and the chairman of the California Gambling Control Commission.
Sylvia Cates, deputy legal affairs secretary for the governor, and Dean Shelton, the state commission chairman, both said California's compacts require operating rules similar and, in some cases, identical to the federal standards.
Moreover, most tribes have adopted rules at least equal to the federal rules, Cates said.
The state has requested $1.7 million and 14 added positions in the new budget to expand its field presence and begin the transition from federal to state enforcement of the rules.
But, if the state has ample oversight authority, Torrico asked, why is it pushing tribes to accept a new administrative regulation that would require all gaming tribes to comply with standards at least as stringent as the federal rules? Why also, he asked, has the governor implored Congress to restore the federal rules?
“My goal is to ratify these compacts,” Torrico said at the end of the hearing. “But none of the compacts will be ratified until this issue and the others I have mentioned before are addressed fully.”
Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070515-9999-1n15casinos.html
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