Native American casino revenues have surpassed commercial revenues and appear to be continuing to widen the gap, according to figures released this week by Alan Meister, principal economist for Nathan Associates in Irvine, Calif.
Meister reported his findings in his 15th annual Casino City’s Indian Gaming Industry report. Most native American casinos are not required to release their revenue figures, but Meister gathers what information he can via public data. he then works with tribes, gaming facilities, gaming regulators, and federal and tribal regulators to get more data, then obtains confidential private data. to fill in any gaps, he performs analysis and develops market models. He also restricts his reports to state-by-state, rather than by casino, which helps protect confidentiality.
His report for 2015, released this week, shows that Native American Casinos garnered $30.5 billion, compared to $29.8 billion for hotel-resort “commercial” casinos. He breaks out racetrack casinos into a third category. those facilities took in $8.5 billion via gambling.
Meister cites the economic recovery and expansion of Indian Gaming in California as the major reason that Native American casinos are up 5.5 percent over 2015. California has by far the largest number of tribal casinos (72) and accrued $7.9 billion via gambling.
“California was hit worse than most Indian gaming states during the great recession,” Meister said. “But there has been a very strong recovery, and that is reflected in their revenues.”
The top five: California, $7.9B; Oklahoma, $4.2B, Florida, $2.6B, Washington, $2.5B and Arizona, $1.9.
The overall picture for Indian gaming is bright, he said.
“I kind of see it as a package of things of note,” he said. “There’s 5.5 percent growth, the sixth straight year of growth — and that’s important, because it’s back to the precession growth rate — and then outgrowing the economy and comparable sectors.
“All that put together, that’s all good news.”
In calendar year 2015, there were 242 Native American tribes in 494 gaming facilities across 28 states. But it is top-heavy: California and Oklahoma generated approximately 40 percent of total tribal gaming revenue. The bottom 37 percent (about 190) of Indian casinos, which took in $10 million or less for the year, generated only about 2% of total tribal gaming revenue.
“For a lot of small facilities, they’re just helping the tribes to provide jobs,” he said.
Meister says Indian gaming facilities, including non-gaming operations, directly and indirectly generated approximately $103 billion in output. That’s 770,000 jobs, $35.5 billion in wages, $1.76 billion in direct revenue sharing payments to federal, state, and local governments, and $10.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.
The tribes’ non-gaming casino revenues also increased 4.5 percent, adding another $3.9 billion on top.
Meister presented the data at the National Indian Gaming Tradeshow & Convention, which concludes Thursday in San Diego.
