Wipfli works with approximately 115 tribal casinos in the United States. As sovereign nations, each has a different set of goals and objectives.
Grant Eve’s job is to keep them on the right course.
“Those tribal leaders can focus on what their strategy or plan is and implement that over the next year or next several years because it’s really, what are your goals and vision for your tribe?” says Eve, a Wipfli Partner and Gaming and Tribal Government Leader.
“How much profit should we send back to the tribe? How much profit should we reinvest in the property? Or is it tribal employment, if you’re a more rural facility that may not have a large population to draw from.”
Wipfli is a national accounting, tax, and advisory firm focusing on helping businesses improve performance, manage risk, and modernize operations. With tribal properties, Wipfli works to secure and maintain financial health.
Because Wipfli is national, the firm works by industry, not regionality, and can offer a more complete overview of a company’s prospectus.
“A lot of people think if you’re an accounting or consulting firm, it’s just auditors or accountants,” Eve said. “But on the software side, we got a huge ERP system (a centralized financial management platform). For finance transformation, we’ve put over 110 casinos on Sage Intacct in the cloud. We’re partners with Salesforce and several other large software companies.
“We’ve got architects and engineers on the construction auditing side. Cybersecurity. The list runs on. We do a lot of services, but our core is audit, outsourced accounting services, and then technology.”
When engaging tribes, Eve says Wipfli follows a thorough course of action: to listen, learn and then understand an operator’s goals and objectives. In its Cost of Doing Business Report, Wipfli creates a snapshot of tribal operations, from revenue to expenses to food & beverage outlets.
For instance, when Eve talks to tribes, most conversations include technology. And that leads to discussions of other functions.
“There’s no doubt that you don’t go into one of those conversations where technology doesn’t come up and seeing where that can be a major competitive advantage,” Eve says. “As the report notes, this year marketing expense declines while revenue increases. That’s when operators become more targeted with promotional investment, but that comes from technology and player analytics and being able to be effective with it.”
The National Indian Gaming Commission reported that tribal operators yielded a robust $46.2 billion in revenue for 2025. While revenue is strong, depreciation expenses are higher. In conversations with Wipfli, tribes have expressed a need to put money back into operations through capital investments.
“They’re putting money back into the facilities,” Eve says. “They’re putting money back into (food & beverage) and machines, new sections of the casinos. We usually have a lot of conversations around the capital reinvestment rates and what that means – maybe not this year, but maybe in two, three, or four years – these can be long term plans.”
Despite the relative health of tribal operators, there are possible headwinds, notably due to the advance of prediction markets. The Commodities Future Trading Commission has been deemed the authority to regulate prediction markets, and Eve advises tribes that they need to be monitored closely.
“To be able to see these products that feel and look almost identical to wagering, outside traditional gaming regulation and compact structures, is a huge threat to not only tribal industry, but to the commercial gaming industry as well,” Eve says. “For years, tribal gaming competed against other casinos, but going forward, they’re going to be competing against companies that don’t view themselves as gaming operators unless the courts step in as they should. Yet the product is similar.”
To combat the encroachment of prediction markets, Eve thinks tribal operators need to be vigilant and proactive.
“You have to continue to stay up to speed on the regulatory side,” he says. “You have to engage with your legal counsel. You have to engage your state and federal representatives.”
Noting that tribes have a strong presence in Washington, D.C., Eve says it’s prudent to take advantage of any relationships they have formed.
“It’s definitely the time to utilize those relationships and continue to work with your constituents and your membership on a state by state and the federal level,” he says, noting the opposition to prediction markets by the American Gaming Association and the Indian Gaming Association.
Wipfli has worked with tribal operators for four decades. What’s made Wipfli successful is treating tribes as more than business partners.
“Understanding the sovereignty around tribes and the different objectives and treating it as a relationship and not a transaction has been one of the reasons we’ve been successful,” Eve says. “And then, just being able to have such a wide variety of services to offer the industry has been helpful as we’ve continued. It’s just been a win-win relationship.”
