CA Indian Gaming #1 in US

as posted 6.05.07 by KQED's JohnMyers at Capitol Notes:


Newly released data from federal regulators finds that tribal casinos in California, combined, are the most profitable Indian gaming operations in the nation.

The big picture analysis from the National Indian Gaming Commission was released yesterday-- showing that nationwide, Indian gaming was a $25 billion industry in 2006.

Today, a little more detail from the NIGC about tribal casinos in California (and one tribal casino outside of Reno, NV which is included in the commission's regional data). The NIGC says Indian gaming here racked up profits of almost $7.7 billion last year. That's about 31% of the entire nation's tribal gambling revenues.

Or put another way... 31 cents of every dollar spent at Indian casinos in the U.S. in 2006 was spent in this region.

And another sense of the size of the Indian casino industry in the Golden State: in 2001, total revenues were about $1.7 billion. That means 2006 revenues are an increase of more than 450% in just the last five years.

Only tribal casinos in the northeastern and southeastern U.S. came close to California, with a combined revenue of $6.2 billion.

The report also gives some sense of the size of various Indian gaming operations in the nation. It shows that of the 387 tribal casinos operating in 2006, more than 84% of the revenues came from only 108 of those casinos.

And at the very top: 23 tribal casinos, which each had revenues of above $250 million. In fact, those 23 casinos accounted for a whopping $11.2 billion of all tribal gaming revenues in the nation (the NIGC won't disclose where California tribal casinos fell in this range, saying the information is proprietary).

You can find the overview on the NIGC's website.