Indian Gaming in North Dakota: Resisting the Exodus

A Successful Blend of Culture, Recreation and Entertainment

Spotlight on the Spirit Lake Nation

North Dakota Indian gaming is a role model for what Indian gaming can do for Indian nations and surrounding communities. All five Indian nations with Class-III casinos recently negotiated a unified tribal-state compact with the Governor, facilitating access to financing and promising a bright future for this thriving industry. Indian gaming in North Dakota provides employment opportunities in areas of historically high unemployment, creates economic development in a state that has suffered financially from the farm crisis, and allows access to meaningful work on or near reservations, allowing Native North Dakotans to stay close to home and retain cultural and community ties.

A Net Exodus from the State

In order to appreciate the profound social and economic benefits of Indian gaming in North Dakota, it is important to understand the demographics of North Dakota. In 1930, there were 681,000 people living in North Dakota. In 1990, the state of North Dakota had 638,800 inhabitants, marking over 60 years of steady population decline. Between 1980 and 1990 alone, the population of the state fell by 2.1 percent. Rural North Dakotans are the most likely to be relocating. Since 1950, North Dakotans from rural areas have been moving into towns and cities or leaving the state altogether. Urban areas are showing sharp population increases as farmers seek employment in cities. For example, Bismarck, the state capitol, more than doubled its population between 1950 and 1990. Those who remain in rural areas are aging without another generation to sustain the rural lifestyle. The lack of opportunity in rural areas has had a profound impact on rural America in general and rural North Dakota in particular.

Indian nations are the exception to North Dakota's rural population shift, largely because of the positive impacts of Indian gaming. Tribal and reservation populations are growing and the growth in population is the youngest in all of North Dakota. Indian gaming is providing the employment opportunities to keep young people at home and Indian gaming revenues are financing the basic infrastructure necessary to re-build and sustain rural reservation communities. Carl Walking Eagle, Vice Chairman and Gaming Commission at Spirit Lake, says that gaming not only allows people to live at home, but to thrive there. He observes that tribal members "have a new sense of pride, renewed energies and hope,that extends a sense of satisfaction to our elders, and instills purpose and dedication in our young people."

The benefits of Indian gaming are not limited to the reservation,however. As an industry, Indian gaming in North Dakota has created over 2000 jobs in the state, all in rural areas. According to a recent study by the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association, the total payroll for the five casinos in North Dakota exceeds $30,000,000 per year. The multiplier effect of this payroll results in an economic benefit of $93,000,000 to the state from payroll alone. When combined with casino purchases, Indian gaming creates a total positive economic benefit of $121,726,007 to the state. This economic activity places Indian gaming among the top economic engines in North Dakota.

There are currently five Indian nations that run Class III casino facilities in North Dakota: The Three Affiliated Tribes, The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, The Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Spirit Lake Nation. The first casinos opened in 1992 after the Indian nations signed a compact with the governor. In the fall of 1999, the five Indian nations in North Dakota renegotiated these compacts for 10 years, with an initial 5-year renewal. With long-term compacts in hand, these Indian nations are able to secure financing for casino expansion and other economic development ventures. One of those Indian nations is the Spirit Lake Nation in Spirit Lake, North Dakota, whose story is typical but also unique.

The Spirit Lake Nation The Spirit Lake Nation owns and operates the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort in Spirit Lake, ND. Spirit Lake is located in north central North Dakota, near Devils Lake (pop. 8000). It is a largely rural area. The nearest metropolitan area is Grand Forks, which extends into Minnesota,with an estimated population of 102,000 in 1997. The Spirit Lake Nation has approximately 5000 tribal members and most currently live on the Nation's two-hundred forty-five thousand acre (245,000) reservation. Like other reservations in the Midwest, life has not been easy on the Spirit Lake reservation. Unemployment rates on the reservation consistently hover around 50%, even in the Indian gaming era. The tribal government has no tax base to fund its programs, there is no private sector, and Federal programs have consistently failed to serve tribal needs. Prior to the opening of the casino, two manufacturing plants provided the only employment opportunities on the reservation. Employment at those plants fluctuated widely. In the early 1990's those manufacturing plants which relied upon Department of Defense contracts fell on hard times. Of the five hundred jobs at the plants,four hundred were cut. By 1993, unemployment on the reservation reached seventy percent (70%).

The Spirit Lake Casino and Resort

In 1992, the Spirit Lake Nation signed a Class III gaming compact with the Governor. Their initial facilities included two small casinos, one primarily a bingo hall, located in two communities on the reservation. Together they featured only a few dozen slot machines. In 1996, the Nation opened the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort. Currently, the Spirit Lake Casino offers 500 machines and 18 table games, including Blackjack,poker, craps and roulette. There is a 63-room hotel, two restaurants, a gift shop, meeting and convention facilities and a 1000-seat arena.

In addition to the Casino/Resort facilities, the Spirit Lake Nation operates businesses that are fully integrated with local recreational activities. For example, the Spirit Lake Resort operates the only protected marina on Devil's Lake, which encircles the casino and dominates the landscape. In summer months, they host fishing tournaments, sailing tournaments and offer fish cleaning facilities and boat storage. In the winter, visitors and locals alike can rent icehouses and equipment or enjoy groomed snowmobile trails.

Employment

While the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort has become the premier entertainment complex in the region, Indian gaming is serious business for the Spirit Lake Nation. Above all else, Indian gaming is about economic development and opportunity. The Casino and Resort currently employs 400 people, many of whom had become unemployed after the manufacturing plants were down sized. When the new gaming facility opened in 1996, one-third of the employees came directly off the welfare rolls. If not for gaming, possibly four hundred (400) more workers would have needed some sort of state or federal assistance after losing their jobs at the nearby manufacturing plants.

Importantly, eighty (80) percent of the employees are tribal members. These jobs are crucial for allowing tribal members to remain at home on the reservation while having access to steady work. According to Carl Walking Eagle, "As our people are being put to work and our economy grows, our Tribe is providing a major beneficial economic impact throughout the region. We appreciate and need the economic benefit. Yet, this is only part of the story. Personal satisfaction and self-esteem cannot be measured economically, but they are real and visible. Community ties strengthen culture and provide hope for the next generation of tribal members.

Non-Indians also benefit from access to full-time employment and benefits at Spirit Lake. The region has a long tradition of seasonal work. Historically, many local people, Indian and non-Indian, have worked construction or farmed in the warmer months then picked up jobs plowing snow or doing holiday "shift work" in nearby department stores in the winter months. Access to full-time jobs with full benefits provides an opportunity for many North Dakotans to thrive at home and resist the exodus to larger cities or even other states. According to Kurt Luger, the Executive Director of the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association, "Jobs are the primary benefit of the Indian Gaming industry in North Dakota. Indian nations with gaming are creating new jobs in isolated rural areas as well as attracting new tourist dollars to boost the total North Dakota economy. This makes it possible for our employees, Indian and non-Indian, to continue to raise their families in North Dakota."

An Investment in the Community

In addition to providing both entertainment and employment opportunities, the Spirit Lake Nation invests gaming revenues in economic development, charitable contributions and local governmental expenses, improving conditions for everyone in the region. Gaming revenues have been used to build and improve roads, construct a health clinic and elderly home, create small business loans, and update the local manufacturing plants with an eye towards developing a private sector on the reservation. The Nation also contributes money to the state of North Dakota to support a gambling addiction hotline and has given $10,000 to the state for a study of pathological gambling, due in January, 2001.

Like the four other North Dakota tribes with renewed compacts, the Spirit Lake Nation is currently expanding its entertainment complex. The Resort expansion will include a youth recreation complex, retail shops,a golf course, an RV park, additional meeting and convention space and a hotel expansion with fine dining and a swimming pool. The expansion will add 110,000 square feet to the existing Spirit Lake Casino and Resort.

An Even Brighter Future

For the Spirit Lake Nation, as well as the four other nations with gaming in North Dakota, Indian gaming is providing an economic engine for diversifying reservation economies and creating employment opportunities. More importantly, for tribal members, Indian gaming is providing an opportunity for them to return to or remain at home on their reservations and resist the exodus occurring in other areas of the state. Ultimately, Indian gaming is providing North Dakotans, Indian and non-Indian, the opportunity to chose where they want to strengthen their bonds, build their communities and practice their cultures. But that is not all. The General Manager of the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort, Vernon Robertson, reminds us that gaming is also about enjoyment, "While we are focusing on becoming the premier destination resort in the Plains we also remember that the bottom line is this: Gaming is entertainment and having fun."

Written by Kate Spilde, Ph.D. November, 2000