Long odds for future of casino
HELENA – The Blackfeet Indian Tribe is pleased with the trial run of a casino at a hotel next to Glacier National Park, but the hotel management sees slim odds the operation will continue next season.
The casino did not appear to draw much business and it clashes with the image of a vacation at the neighboring park, the chairman of the hotel company said Tuesday.
“I didn’t think about the image of the national park when I did it (agreed to the casino),” said Joseph Fassler, chairman of Glacier Park Inc., which operates the historic Glacier Park Lodge just outside Glacier’s eastern boundary and on the Blackfeet reservation. “Afterward I realized it was sending the wrong signal.”
The tribe installed 30 Rocket Bingo machines, resembling slot machines, for the 2004 summer tourist season at the lodge. Fassler, whose company also operates hotels and services within the park as a concessionaire, said he agreed to make space available for lease out of a desire to help the Blackfeet reservation economically.
But tucked away on the lower level of the 154-room lodge, which was completed in 1913, the machines likely went unnoticed by many guests. Besides having an out-of-the-way location, the casino was not advertised.
Still, Jay St. Goddard of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council said the casino has been “kind of a hidden success” since its opening.
St. Goddard, the former tribal chairman who arranged the casino’s lease with Fassler, remains encouraged as Glacier Park Lodge prepares to close on Sept. 30 and reopen next spring.
The machines offered some hefty payouts that kept players interested, St. Goddard said, adding that advertising would have drawn more tourists.
Fassler said posting highway signs and the like would have been in poor taste.
“There’s a perception of what is found if you go to any national park,” and that image does not include gambling, he said.
Many guests at Glacier Park Lodge think they are in the park, not a few miles from it, he said.
“We don’t want the public to think a national park is conducting any form of gambling,” he added.