Casinos Paying Off For Tribes Profits Helping Umatillas Help Themselves, End Poverty

Two winters ago, housing was so tight on the reservation that some families were living in their cars.

But life has changed for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla.

This summer, 59 American Indian families will move into two-story, four-bedroom houses that will rival those of any suburban subdivision. There will be vinyl siding. There will be landscaped yards, and dishwashers, and carports.

What a difference a few slot machines can make.

Since opening the Wildhorse Gaming Resort in 1994, the Eastern Oregon tribes have posted profits of $5 million a year.

Once known primarily for their supporting role in the Wild West pageantry of the Pendleton RoundUp rodeo, the tribes are using their gambling profits to leverage grants and loans for housing, a golf course, a cultural center and other projects. Since 1992, the tribes’ budget has grown from $7 million to $27 million.

“We weren’t able to go downtown and get a $3 million loan from any bank three years ago,” says tribal chairman Don Sampson. “Now we can. We are chiseling away at that poverty we had in the past.”

These then, are the fruits of gambling for the Umatillas - an answer to “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney, who asked earlier this year, “Why don’t the Indian casinos making hundreds of millions of tax-free dollars help their own people?”

The Indians would say that that is exactly what they are doing. And they would point to the Wildhorse Gaming Resort in the windblown high desert of Eastern Oregon, typical, they say, of what gambling has meant to native people since Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988.

Since then, 140 of the 557 federally recognized tribes have developed state-approved gambling operations.

“Generally it’s viewed as the new buffalo,” says Rick Hill, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association. “It’s putting food on the table. It’s giving people the ability to establish credit, buy homes, buy cars and have a better quality of life for their children.”

Bob Whelan, a Portland economist hired by the Oregon Lottery to study Oregon’s six Indian casinos, found they are very different from those in Atlantic City and Nevada.

“These aren’t casinos run for profit,” said Whelan. “These are casinos basically run for developing economic development dollars.”

And those dollars can be very important to the tribes that earn them, many of which have struggled with poverty for generations, says Tom Greaves, a professor of anthropology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa.

The Wildhorse casino is more than 200 miles from the bulk of Oregon’s 3 million people, but draws well from the traffic on the new Oregon Trail - Interstate 84 - as well as nearby Walla, Wash.

The casino’s 340 jobs and $6 million payroll have helped cut unemployment on the reservation from 34 percent to 24 percent in the past year. Members of the Umatilla tribes fill 36 percent of the jobs, other Indians 27 percent, and non-Indians 37 percent.

Umatilla tribal member Tom Pierre was working for the railroad, driving as far as 200 miles to work, when he quit to take a job at Wildhorse. He started as a security guard, became a blackjack dealer and is now a pit boss.

A member of the tribal housing council, he used his $500 share of gambling profits last year to buy a king-size bed. Other years he has used the money for siding or new windows for his house.

The Umatilla tribes are building a golf course and RV park that will combine with the hotel, casino and truck stop they already operate.