Tribal casino operations boost wages for American Indians and reduce unemployment for nearby people of all races employed in casino-related industries. In addition, per-capita payments of casino profits may have contributed to improved living standards, on average, for tribal citizens living on reservations.
These are the findings of a recent working paper co-authored by UCLA Luskin’s Randall Akee, a professor of public policy and American Indian studies, and summarized in a U.S. Census Bureau report.
Using census data to evaluate ZIP-code-level economic impacts, the researchers showed that the expansion of tribal casinos that began in the 1990s has helped improve conditions faster for American Indians relative to the U.S. population as a whole.
