Richard Armstrong posed a question to the audience at “Leading Tribal Gaming Regulation: Building Strong Regulatory Teams, Careers, and Wellness” during the Global Gaming Expo last week at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas.
“How many of you were regulators 10 years ago?”
A small group of hands.
“Okay, more than 20 years ago?”
Hardly any hands were raised.
“Before that, we weren’t even thought of as an industry,” said Armstrong, chairman of the Wilton Rancheria Gaming Commission. “We are an infant industry. And we need to be aware of that as we continue to develop and build career paths for the next generations behind us.”
Tribal regulator’s salaries, according to a Google search, range from about $40,000-$50,000 per year. But according to Jamie Hummingbird, most regulators are not in it for financial gain.
“It’s those people that are out there watching and making sure that not only are they protecting the public like we’re supposed to, but they’re also protecting the tribe and its assets,” said Hummingbird, National Tribal Gaming Commissioners & Regulators chairman.
“We do that because of who we are,” Hummingbird said. “We do it because we are an extension of our tribal government, who are there to work for our people. When we are saying we’re the primary regulators, we do it because we honor our people. We want to serve our people, not because somebody in the state office or the federal office decided that we had to have certain things in place.”
Frances Alvarez, a Wilton Rancheria Gaming Commission regulator, said tribes have to deal with three levels of regulation. In addition to tribal regulators, they also have to deal with state and federal regulators.
They all have the authority to oversee and protect tribal assets. But to her, tribal regulators have an additional responsibility.
“We are protecting our own assets. We’re protecting our own future,” Alvarez said. “And I’ve been on this this soap opera before about what our casinos mean to us. They’re more than bringing in revenue. They’re protecting the community. They’re protecting the future of our generations. We’re not putting more revenue in stakeholders’ pockets. We’re putting resources into the communities.
“So, to me, of course, we’re the primary regulators because we have the responsibility to not only protect the assets of our casinos, enforce integrity, enforce proper regulations, but we also have the tremendous responsibility of ensuring that those casinos, those regulations are there to protect our future.”
Alvarez’s biggest fear is losing the strong culture of regulation that has served tribes for so long and been essential to the growth of tribes.
“If we fail, then everyone has an opportunity to fall back on the reasons why we do things,” Alvarez said. “Building that strong culture is not only important for building trust and consistency within the commission, but it’s also important to continue that purpose.”
Hummingbird said he thinks that tribal regulators have a good handle on what they are supposed to do. But everyone else might not have that clarity. It’s up to regulators to make sure their constituents know what they do is vital.
“The flip side of that is being able to respect the boundaries that go along with this,” Hummingbird said. “As regulators, a lot of times we get influences or suggestions or some other type of nudge to do things or act a certain way, say yes and not no, those kinds of things.
“But the example I used this morning is do you go into your doctor’s office and tell them what’s wrong with you and tell them how you would prescribe the medicine to me? No, you go into doctor’s office, you go into a mechanic shop, you go into someplace, and you turn yourself over and you let them do their job. It’s not that they’re not accountable, that they’re completely autonomous, but you hire them for a reason.
“If you are going to respect those boundaries, you can see a lot better results coming out of that office,” Hummingbird said.
