TribalNet is a good idea that commercial casinos should emulate. The main focus is information technology for Native American casino operators, but the format has recently expanded to include tracks on health and government.
The first TribalNet event was held in the year 2000 with just 15 tribes and IBM as a sponsor. This week, there are hundreds of attendees with more than 100 vendors and sponsors.
The initial idea for TribalNet came to IT veteran Mike Day in 1997. He’d been working on technology issues with the Sault Ste.”¯Marie Tribe as early as 1988. But he quickly realized that very little information on casino technology was available to tribes in those early days. Nor was there any information for vendors on how to deal with the many and varied tribes. He uses the analogy of cavemen trying to start a fire. “There was no book. Everyone had to figure it out on their own by trial and error.”
Day says, “I bought a mailing list of all the tribes from the BIA, then sat on my living-room floor with my kids and stuffed envelopes, sending out queries to see if anyone was interested in this idea of sharing information. It worked.”
As the TribalNet website declares, the conference and show “afford you the opportunity to create and manage key vendor partnerships that are essential to the continued success of your technology investment, learn from others facing similar challenges and opportunities, and network with your peers from across the country.”
While operators in Nevada and New Jersey did have a few decades of experience in the field, most commercial gaming operators historically have been overly siloed. In other words, they seldom shared what they called “proprietary” practices with their competitors. That’s not out of the ordinary, though it was when they proclaimed that absolutely everything they do is proprietary.
Day says, “In certain things, you shouldn’t be competing. Why does everyone have to make the same mistakes I made? Likewise, our providers didn’t know anything about tribes. They didn’t know who to contact or how.”
Before the millennium, Indian casinos were not really on anyone’s radar. But as of 2021, Native Americans generated nearly half of all the brick-and-mortar casino revenue in the country ($39.03 billion, compared to $44.94 billion for commercial non-Native operations). While corporate giants MGM and Caesars remain the largest gaming companies, individual Native American casinos dominate the Top Ten list of the biggest properties, feature the highest number of slot machines, and generate the most gaming revenue in their individual casinos from coast to coast.
Today in its 23rd year, the TribalNet Conference and Tradeshow is one of the largest gatherings of its kind. While there is no shortage worldwide of technology shows, TribalNet is the only one that has a particular focus on gaming and casino issues (G2E and ICE do have tech topics, but not to the extent of TribalNet). For his two decades of involvement, Day won a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Gaming and Leisure magazine in 2016.
Among the exhibitors this year are numerous tech giants like Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Adobe, and Amazon, along with more than 100 other vendor booths.
Day points out that the conference focuses not on tribal leaders, but rather those who operate the systems and monitor the technology that powers casinos.
“No one here advocates politically or policy,” Day says. “We focus on operations. Those are the people on the ground making things happen. We have a room full of experts in their fields.”
But he also notes, “Today, everyone is a technologist.” He cites analytic tools, social media, cashless, and mobile wagering hitting the traditional gaming floor, along with the emails, texts, and cell phones of virtually every employee.
Nonetheless, this year’s attendees seem dominated by IT staff, auditors, and the emerging category of information-security pros. Indeed, while there was a varied menu of seminars, many were focused on cyber security and protecting tribal assets from hackers and ransomware.
The main event runs through Thursday the 15th. TribalNet and parent TribalHub also sponsor a series of smaller regional conferences across the country, with the next events scheduled in Durant, OK, November 2-3 and Albuquerque, NM, November 7-8.
