Gambling as a Financial Benefit - Assignment Example

Proposition 1a in California, 1999: Gambling as a Financial Benefit, Build on an Addictive Vice In1979 a battle for the sovereignty of Native American tribal communities was won when the courts determined that gaming on reservation lands was under the purview of the individual tribal councils. Proposition 1a in California was intended to create an amendment to the state constitution that would allow for compacts that could be created by the governing bodies of California, with federal approval, that would stabilize the industry on tribal lands. The reasons that gaming is good for the Native American tribes is that it encourages increased wealth and decreases in poverty within the people of these individual nations. However, there are good arguments against allowing gambling on tribal lands, including the increased pressure by people outside of the Native American tribes putting deeper pressures on the state government that would allow a greater lenience on bringing in all forms of gambling in order to have fair competition. The use of any vice as a form of financial success, however, takes its toll on any nation. The Native American community is not immune to these problems Gambling is not a recent concept within the Native American tribes of the United States. It is not correct to think that it is an influence of the European culture that introduced a vice into the tribes. According to Rosier, Native Americans engaged in a wide variety of sporting events and games that included wagering long before the Europeans came to North America. Even some of their political decisions and healing was done through methods that resemble gambling (114). However, the introduction of a form of entertainment that has long been associated with nefarious social circumstances might not be the best course of action for the Native American people. In 1979, the Seminole Native Americans opened bingo games with $10,000 dollar jackpots which were against the $100 dollar Jackpots that were the limits within state law. When the games were shut down, the Seminole nation sued, claiming that they were a sovereign state and were protected by the federal government. In the action Seminole Tribe of Florida v Butterworth (1981), it was claimed that since the state allowed bingo games outside of the reservation, they had no jurisdiction to disallow them, or to govern them as they were considered a separate nation under federal guidelines. The case served two purposes: it opened up the reservation to expand its bingo operations and create a new source of revenue, and it also helped to define the sovereignty that was afforded to the reservation under federal guidelines (Rosier 115). Federal law has established that gambling on reservations is limited only by the limits put on gambling anywhere in a state and are governed by the tribal decisions as they have been given sovereignty. Proposition 1a in California was presented as an amendment to the state constitution to provide for ‘compacts’ that would further support and define the way in which gambling would be conducted within the state and allow for a broader availability of gaming that is beyond the actual allowances within the state. The proposition specifically allows for tribes to conduct the use of slot machines, lottery games, and banked and percentage card games on tribal lands (LAO). The compacts would be done per tribe and would have an agreement in place between the governor and the tribal council, have legislative approval, and federal approval. However, lottery games are already allowed as the state allows a lottery, thus giving the tribes automatic approval for that type of game (Lawrence 50). The most popular argument for allowing the freedom of the tribes of Native Americans to support and run gambling casinos is because it has positively affected the poverty rates within the culture. In allowing for gambling on tribal lands, the people have found employment and prosperity with the casinos and establishments that are needed with the casinos, including but not limited food and lodging (Pico 6). Between the years of 1990 and 2000, the poverty rates in the tribal areas dropped by 7 percent in non-gaming lands, but by 11 percent on lands that allow for gambling (French 167). The goal of Proposition 1a is to allow for this decreasing rate of poverty to continue and to allow for the continued success of the industry for the tribes who use it for a source of revenue. Another argument for such a proposal is that it allows for the end to come to legal bickering and suits brought that challenge the rights of the tribes to have gambling on their lands. These compacts are agreements that will automatically quell the number of challenges that the tribes face when they utilize the laws as written without further clarification (Champagne 192). When legal battles are continually fought in order to define and redefine the laws that have been passed regarding the rights of the tribes, resources are diminished that can be used by these nations in order to further their development and prosperity (Lawrence 50). One of the biggest arguments against Proposition 1a is that the amendment isn’t about allowing gambling that mirrors that of what is allowed in that state, but that it gives the tribes more options in the types of gambling that can be brought in. This is focused on slot machines which are not allowed anywhere in the state, but can be brought into the tribal lands through this amendment. Any of the mentioned forms of gambling, regardless of whether it is already approved or not within the boundaries of the state, can be negotiated with the governing bodies and be allowed to thrive on tribal lands. There are 107 tribes in California with each being allowed to run up to two casinos (Thompson). According to the rebuttal to the support of the proposition that was written by Bruce Thompson, Leo McCarthy, and Melanie Morgan, this can equal over 100,000 slot machines brought into the state, a game that they call the crack cocaine of gambling. While in general the use of slot machines is a low investment type of gambling, the repetitive movement and the repetition of “one more time” creates an addictive property that spirals into a deep addictive problem for many players (Friemuth 82). Allowing tribes to bring in instruments of gambling that are outside the laws of the state of California provides an opportunity for disaster to take hold and affect many people, including families that will experience financial disaster. Another argument against the use of gambling by tribes is that while it is increasing the wealth from an overall statistical point of view, it is not affecting the majority number of people within the tribes across the United States. According to a statement written by Paul Wellstone in 2001 to Congress, only a third of all tribes have gambling on their lands while 50.5 percent of the revenue is coming from only the top 20 casinos. Therefore, the wealth is being made in centralized locations, but not as an overall impact against poverty on the reservations. There are 554 tribes across the United States that are in need of support. There is a pervasive opinion that gaming has successfully turned the tide of poverty on these reservations, but this is an inaccurate portrayal that is supported by a false set of data. Poverty is still rampant and services still need federal funds in order to provide development. However, gaming that has solved a few of the problems, clouds the overall perception of the American public. Gambling on tribal lands is not subject to state and local taxes; therefore it adversely affects the overall revenue of the state in which they thrive. There is a lack of data on the revenue because the tribes are not obligated to report their earnings to any U. S. governmental resource, thus it is difficult to assess the actual damage. However, according to Williams, there is a discernable affect on states that have gambling and extensive regression theory analysis of those revenues can show that it has had a negative effect on overall state revenues. Therefore, the development of casinos on tribal lands within a state can show a decrease in overall state revenues that can be used to provide vital services to the general population. There is a moral issue at hand when considering the use of gambling as a saving resource for a culture. Gambling is considered a vice that attracts criminal elements as well as promotes the disintegration of families and individuals when addiction takes over. Allowing the sovereignty of nations within a nation to use this form of freedom diminishes the advantages of those freedoms. According to Murphy, the criteria for a community moral “is to say at least one of the following: it contravenes community values, it causes more social harm than social good, it unjustly violates important rights of persons, or it corrupts the characters of persons” (168). In California, it has been determined that certain forms of gambling will not be allowed. As well, there is evidence that gambling creates financial crisis through addictions (Freimuth­). Therefore, the nations are depending something that is at least morally questionable as a from of revenue. There is an argument to be made that gambling attracts a certain amount of criminal behavior and association. There is always the possibility, because of the nefarious nature of gaming that elements outside of the tribal councils will try to influence the way in which the safety and regulation of the casinos is conducted. There are some reports that in tribes where there is gaming venues there is a decrease in crime (Ross and Gould 182). However, it can be argued that the way in which crime is perceived is changed as the tribes adjust to influences that provide certain support they might need in order to enforce their existence. While the evidence of this is not available because of the closed nature of the tribes regarding their dealings, this very nature of a closed culture within the greater culture of the United States provides for the influence of criminal elements without the regulations to shut such influences down. Proposition 1a provides a door for increases in gambling that the state of California has already rejected for its general population. According to federal law, a tribe may have forms of gaming on their lands that are accepted in any one place in the whole of a state. In the example of slot machines, they are not accepted anywhere within the state, therefore to open the door for a way for them to come into the tribal communities is to provide an exception to that community rather than provide an inclusion to the state or community accepted practices. By allowing this type of exclusion from state regulations, the door has been opened to create challenges by others who wish to partake of the wealth that can come from gambling through currently illegal forms, such as slot machines. Furthermore, in having gambling as a source of revenue on tribal lands, the increase of morally detrimental facilities allow for increases in social problems that result from those forms of entertainment. The allowances made for tribal communities does not increase their freedoms, but it impedes a state from allowing a few gaming opportunities that might be harmless in order to prevent the insertion of larger establishments that can conglomerate individuated situations across the state into one facility. As well, the addition of compacts that are agreements that allow for even more gaming opportunities that are not currently allowed within a state opens the door for morally objectionable opportunities with which the surrounding communities will be held responsible to remedy and to navigate for the consequences that will be the result. There are reasons that states put limitations on gaming and why communities only open small and limited opportunities for gaming in any one area. Allowing for larger facilities that are self-regulated and much more dense with gaming provides a decrease in the moral integrity the state desires. Works Cited Champagne, Duane. Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations. Lanham: Altamira Press, 2007. Print. French, Laurence. Legislating Indian Country: Significant Milestones in Transforming Tribalism. New York [u.a.: Lang, 2007. Print. Freimuth, Marilyn. Hidden Addictions: Assessment Practices for Psychotherapists, Counselors, and Health Care Providers. Northvale: Jason Aronson, 2009. Print. Goldberg, Carol. Jeff Sedovic, Pico, Anthony. Rebuttal to Argument Against Proposition 1a. Ross, Jeffrey I, and Larry A. Gould. Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System. Boulder, Colo: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. Print. LAO. Proposition 1a, Gambling on Tribal Lands. Resolution 142, Statutes of 1999. Web. Lawrence, David G. California: The Politics of Diversity. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Murphy, Jeffrie G. Character, Liberty, and Law: Kantian Essays in Theory and Practice. Library of ethics and applied philosophy, 3. Dordrecht [u.a.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Print. Pico, Anthony, Paula Lorenzo, and Mark Macarro. Argument in Favor of Proposition 1a. Rosier, Paul C. Native American Issues. Contemporary American ethnic issues. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print. Thompson, Bruce, Leo McCarthy, and Melanie Morgan. Rebuttal to Argument in Favor of Proposition 1a. Wellstone, Paul. Prepared Statement of Paul Wellstone, U. S. Senator from Minnesota. Found in Ben Nighthorse Campbell. National Gambling Impact Study Commission Final Report: Congressional Hearing. Washington D. C.: Diane Publishing Company, 2001. Print. Williams, Leighton. The Economics of Gambling. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print. Read More