Regulators, tribes agree on new casino compacts

OLYMPIA – Washington state gambling regulators and 27 tribes on Thursday announced agreement on new compacts that will allow thousands more slot-style machines in reservation casinos.

Full approval by the state and federal government is expected in the next four to six months.

The new master agreement with the tribes, dubbed X2, would expand the number of electronic slot machines from 18,225 to a maximum of 27,300. It would cap the number of casinos, but would give tribes authority to stay open around the clock and to offer higher-stakes games.

Tribes currently are allowed to operate 675 gambling machines, although the Muckleshoot, Tulalip and Puyallup tribes are allowed to lease or purchase as many as 3,000 terminals. The new compact would allow most tribes to have as many as 975 machines. The other three tribes could expand to 3,500 and, after three years, to 4,000.

The deal, which largely reflects the groundwork done in a sweeping new compact with the Spokane Tribe of Indians, was announced in Olympia by the state Gambling Commission.

All 27 tribes have concurred and Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign the deal her office helped negotiate. .

The commission will take up the pact at its March 9 meeting in Olympia and can take action then or at a subsequent meeting. The agreement then goes to the governor and to the U.S. Interior Department. Final approval is likely to come later this year, commission Director Rick Day said.

Under a powerful federal law, states are required to negotiate in good faith with tribes, which enjoy sovereign nation status. Tribal gambling is an increasingly important part of the tribes’ economic base, Day said.

“The tribes don’t think the state should be imposing limits at all, that it should be a business decision for them,” he said. “So the state tries to do its best to maintain some limitations on the growth.

“This plan continues to control the number and allows incremental growth for the tribes.”

Tom Fitzsimmons, the governor’s negotiator and chief of staff, said, “The tribes came in and asked for a lot more than what they’ve settled for.”

Ron Allen, chairman of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, called the agreement a fair compromise.

“Obviously the tribes would ask for a little more leeway, a little more liberty, but we recognize the state’s interest in keeping the gambling industry under control,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. “It’s not like they just roll over for the tribes.”

He said the new Washington agreement will be “probably in the middle of the road” compared with agreements in other states regarding tribal gambling. Some states require revenue-sharing, which Washington does not, and some are more restrictive and others more generous, he said.

Gregoire recently signed a compact that gives the Spokane Tribe the right to own 900 machines, which the other tribes then were entitled to. The concession angered several lawmakers, including Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, who called it a continued escalation of gambling.

But regulators say the new level still is well below the number of machines the state promised gaming tribes they could eventually operate during compact negotiations in the mid-1990s.

Tribal machines have more than tripled in the past 15 years and tribal gambling accounts for an estimated $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion gambling industry in the state.