Window of Opportunity
by Matt Connor
December 3, 2008
For more than a decade, the Navajo tribe resisted casino development — That’s now changing
Pity poor Noqoìlpi.
One of the great characters of Navajo
folklore, Noqoìlpi started out as the luckiest gambler who ever lived. The man
just could not lose, and at his peak he owned acres of land and houses,
valuable possessions and scores of slaves, all won through the all-or-nothing
games of chance in which he engaged with neighboring tribal members.
But then the gods conspired against him,
and Noqoìlpi lost everything – even his own freedom – in a series of daring
high-stakes gambles.
So powerful is the story of “Noqoìlpi:
The Gambler” in Navajo culture that it’s very likely his tale of boom and bust
influenced Navajo voters when, over the course of about 10 years, a series of
gaming referenda were placed before them.
Again and again through the 1990s, those
referenda were shot down by often significant margins.
“The original draft of our gaming
ordinance came up in the early 1990s,” said Ray Etcitty, a tribal member and
legal counsel to the Navajo Gaming Enterprise. “It was put together by some
Navajo attorneys and it was approved by the Navajo Nation Council. At that
point I believe it was given to the then-president, whose concern was that the
people did not have a voice in the decision.
“He recommended that instead of just
approving a gaming ordinance, that it should be given, as a referendum, to the
people. In 1995 and 1996 it was voted down by about 55 percent opposed. We then
had another referendum in the late 1990s, around 1998. It was voted down by
about the same margins.”
According to Etcitty, there appeared to
be two concerns by the voting public about the gaming referenda. One involved
the Navajo story of Noqoìlpi.
“He was a person who gambled, according
to Navajo stories, and does not win in the end,” Etcitty said. “He ends up
losing. Therefore in the Navajo tradition, in Navajo thought, the gambler is
not someone who is looked kindly upon.”
A second, perhaps more significant
concern, Etcitty said, was a general lack of confidence in the then-Navajo
government, a sentiment faced by many incumbent Republicans across America today,
as voters prepare to cast their ballots nationwide in
November.
“They wanted the government to be
restructured to be more efficient,” Etcitty said of Navajo voters of the 1990s.
“Their perception of the government was not good, so they did not want to
support gaming. They were disenchanted with the government operations at that
time.”
Meanwhile, across the country, Indian
tribes were reaping often tremendous benefits from gaming, using casino dollars
to boost their economies and rebuild long-neglected
infrastructures.
While the nation’s largest Indian tribe
– both in terms of membership and reservation size – repeatedly gave the
thumb’s down to gaming, it nonetheless pursued other economic development
options, such as natural resource management.
In recent years, however, as
unemployment on the Navajo reservations began to climb and the states of Arizona and New
Mexico began to finalize compact negotiations with
various tribes with reservations within those state borders, the Navajo people
began to reconsider their staunch opposition to casino
development.
“I think they started to see a window
of opportunity closing as other people were negotiating in Arizona and New
Mexico and compact provisions and different compacts were being signed,” said
Mike Devaney, chief operating officer of the Navajo Nation Gaming
Enterprise. “I think they began to see
that they needed a bigger voice in those negotiations.”
Initially, the tribe considered a
limited approach to gaming on Navajo land. There were proposals to restrict
casino development to a Navajo “satellite reservation” just outside
Albuquerque, for example, and keep it off of “Big Navajo,” the larger
reservation that stretches over three states (Arizona, Utah and New
Mexico).
“That was how it was eventually approved
by the Navajo Nation in early 2001,” Etcitty said.
Then tribal leadership mulled the
prospect of leasing their slot machine allotments in Arizona to other gaming tribes in that state.
“Arizona
allowed something called ‘holding arrangements,’” Etcitty said. “That was where
certain urban tribes that benefitted from gaming could lease slot allocations
from tribes located in rural areas, who did not benefit as greatly from gaming.
“The Navajo Nation at that point began exploring the idea of leasing our
allocations in Arizona.”
Two years ago, the Navajo finalized their
“pooling agreement” with two Southern Arizona
tribes. Once that door was open, Etcitty said, the tribe finally decided to
pursue gaming on “Big Navajo” as opposed to a satellite location.
“We put together some public hearings and
pursued another referendum, and this time the people approved gaming,” Etcitty
said. “That gave the green light to the Navajo Nation to begin pursuing it
fully. Prior to that it was very limited because nobody wanted to go against
the wishes of the people.”
Other political questions immediately
came up, however. How would the casino enterprises be set up and regulated? Who
would be in charge?
“In October of 2006, the Navajo Nation officially created the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise, the entity designated by the Navajo Nation to conduct gaming. That was designated pursuant to both New Mexico and Arizona compacts.”
A $35 million loan from the Navajo Nation Land Acquisition Fund provided the financing for the Fire Rock Casino, the first of six proposed gaming enterprises on Navajo land, in the tribe’s Church Rock Chapter, three miles east of Gallup, on historic Route 66.
The 68,000-square-foot property, which was scheduled to open last month, will have 472 slots (Konami, IGT, Williams and Aristocrat, run on the Konami slot system), six blackjack tables, an ultimate Texas Hold’em, a three-card poker table and five traditional poker tables. It also will feature a 402-seat bingo hall.
In an interview before the scheduled opening, Devaney said a feeling of high anticipation permeated the administrative offices of the gaming enterprise.
“Right now it’s all logistics,” he said. “It’s all bringing things together in a timely fashion and a delivery schedule that will not get in the way of construction."
Despite the fact that the casino will launch in the middle of the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, Devaney said he’s not overly worried that consumers might stay home and cling to their cash.
“We’re not concerned at the locations that we have in mind, because we are entering markets that are not penetrated,” he said. “So while there’s always a downturn, they will be new ventures within those markets. Obviously we would have done what we would have done if the economy was better. But we’re not going to do poorly.”
Of a greater concern to Devaney, he said, were the limits placed on the use of alcohol and tobacco use reservation-wide.
“We had a smoking issue that was before the council and it was passed, vetoed and then the override failed,” Devaney explained. “The smoking issue would have severely hampered our success because it would have been the only casino in the world where you could not have gone outside or to designated smoking area to smoke.
“Thankfully it was successfully defeated. But we did make a compromise: It will be 21 or over only, and only about 20 percent of the facility will have smoking.”
“We’re trying to build an economy and supply jobs and education for the tribal members and it’s all a balance. Everything in life is a balance.
As for alcohol, limits were placed on where it could be consumed at the casino, along with a requirement that food must be purchased with alcoholic beverages.
The Navajo Nation’s first experiment with casino gaming will draw its primary business from Gallup and from outlying areas and travelers on Route 66.
“It will be 50/50, but our growth will come from developing the traveling market and drawing people from Arizona and Albuquerque,” he said.
Competition from the robust Albuquerque gaming market is not a major concern, Devaney added.“Not at all. If you offer a superior product, people will come. We’re going to offer a superior product.”
Matt Connor
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
