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faint tinkling of the bells of fascism.

Perhaps you believe that everyone should live as righteously as you do, and that gambling is an evil tool of Satan. Chances are that you know someone that has dropped a nickel or two into a slot machine somewhere, or someone that regularly buys state operated lottery pools, seeking instant riches as a means of fulfilling their dreams. Are they evil doers that should be condemned? Such a puritanical view of the world has not survived well in the world and has not offered much in the advancement of civilization.

No one is hurt from a transaction between the machine, the state or the gambler. The gambler makes a decision to do so of his/her own free will. The chances for success are unrealistic, but who cares. He is only chasing a dream, one dollar at a time. Doesn't the gambler makes the same decision before he places a dollar in the Sunday collection plate? In the end, it is the state, or the tribe, or the church that benefit from the gambler's decision while the gambler waits and prays for the outcome.

Like most everything in Indian Country, the allocation of gambling profits is strictly regulated. After covering operating expenses, profits are divided up between the regulators and legislated economic development areas such as education, social services, tribal administration, and infrastructure. In some, but not all Tribes, a portion of the profits are returned to the membership in the form of a dividend payment. This too, is highly regulated by the government.

Without the revenue generated from gaming operations, improving and expanding tribal programs, and indeed tribal quality of life, would be nearly impossible. The cost of delivering these programs has grown astronomically over the years and would otherwise fall back upon the government and ultimately the tax payer.

It is frequently argued that government has a fiduciary responsibility towards the tribes enshrined in the Constitution and the Treaties entered into as a means of protecting the Indian way of life and the lands they inhabited at the time. In exercising the right to conduct gaming within its sovereign territory, the Tribes and the Government have reached a new social compact, one that freely permits capitalism and limited self-government instead of socialism. No one is hurt from this arrangement.

Learn more about this author, Francis Jock.
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