Tribes want compact to eliminate guessing game

By Kelly Kurt

Amid the Las Vegas-style flash of games like Mr. Money Bags and Lucky Leprechaun, Oklahoma's tribal casinos want to end one gamble.

It's a guessing game in which tribes add new slot-like machines and then wait to see if U.S. regulators consider them lawful. When tribes lose, they pay by going to court or removing some of their most popular draws.

"I've heard it referred to as `you keep rolling the dice and I'll tell you when you win,'" said Bob Rabon, an attorney for the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations.

A compact, or agreement, that would have legalized some questioned games in exchange for giving Oklahoma an estimated $30 million share of the gambling pot each year is now on hold.

The gaming changes, linked to an effort to rescue Oklahoma's ailing horse racing industry, lacked support in the state House. It adjourned last month without putting them to a vote.

"What the state was attempting to do was not proliferate gaming but get their arms around and help regulate gaming, and make money off of it," said Mike Bailey, assistant chief of the Choctaw Nation.

"It was a good deal for everyone," he said.

The gambling goes on uninterrupted in the state's nearly 70 Indian gaming centers, an industry that took in $208 million in 2000, according to a Harvard study. Out-of-state patrons contributed $83 million.

The spinning "7s" and rows of cherries on their machines lend a Las Vegas air. But approved games are not slot machines, just high-tech bingo games graphically dolled up to look like them.

Without a compact, tribal casinos can offer only Class II games, such as bingo and pull-tabs, and the state cannot touch the earnings.

The difference between Class II and casino-style Class III machines can be so subtle, though, tribes rely on laboratories to make the call. Even then, regulators have disagreed.

On a recent midweek afternoon, a customer at the Creek Nation casino in Tulsa wandered rows of colorful pulsing, beeping machines in confusion. His favorite game was missing.

An employee told him it had been removed under orders of the National Indian Gaming Commission.

Perry Beaver, chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said that's what the compact would have helped avoid.

"I'd like to get something standardized," he said.

Tribes install the games on the assessments of lawyers and laboratories. It could take months, even years, for the NIGC to certify games in advance, Rabon said.

"The manufacturers of machines are going to push us as close to the edge as they can," he said. "The more it's like Class III, the more customers like to play it."

Under the compact, Oklahoma could have taxed Indian casinos.

More importantly, said State Finance Director Scott Meacham, it would have given the state oversight through licensing, background checks and an independent lab to examine games.

"This compact would have allowed the state for the first time ever to gain regulation over all this Indian gaming that appears to be spiraling out of control," he said.

It would have legalized "narrow carve-outs" for games that fall into gray areas between Class II and Class III games, Meacham said.

He intends before summer's end to meet with tribal leaders on a revised compact not tied to the state's pari-mutuel race tracks. The bill before lawmakers last session would have allowed the tracks to
operate the same games as the casinos.

The largest tribal casino operators remain eager to talk.

A compact would help tribes avoid costly court battles over game disputes and give them the chance to buy machines instead of leasing them, Rabon said. The tribes also have faith in the draw of the popular games _ enough to give up millions in tax dollars.

"The tribes want some certainty," he said.

On the Net:

National Indian Gaming Commission: www.nigc.gov