<p>I was in the barber shop yesterday listening to a a senior resident of one of the local Indian tribes raise an interesting point - now that members of his tribe are receiving relative large amounts of ‘free money’ (>$100K/yr for some families) from the casino on their reservation, many of the members have quit their jobs and many of the young people no longer bother to go to school. They figure ‘why go to school - I don’t need to’ because they’re basically being handed plenty of money to live without having to work. </p>
<p>So this led me to wonder - are the casinos helping or hurting the Native Americans receiving revenue from them in the long run? I have no doubt that in some cases facility improvements have been made and some opportunities have opened but what good does it do to build a new school if many don’t bother to attend? It seems that the excessive idleness for many will only increase the likelihood of alcoholism and drug abuse. What will happen to this next generation who grew up with free casino income reach adulthood? </p>
<p>Are Indian gaming casinos really a good thing for the Native Americans or not?</p>
<p>I think that with most things there is going to be a downside to good things.</p>
<p>Considering the state of many indian reservations before casinos popped up (and still some even now), I think they have for the most part been a good thing.</p>
<p>I suspect they do more harm than good to everybody, not just Indians. Probably at worst a mixed blessing to the lucky few tribes that really make a go of it. I think it’s like any other form of inherited, unearned wealth: often, in retrospect, a person isn’t helped by it, and may even be hurt, but no one turns it down.</p>
<p>I live within a couple miles of a casino. Yes, it’s a blessing curse thing. It depends on leadership of the tribe. Here locally any tribal kid can go to college for free. They’ve built a health center, boys and girls club, computer labs and alot of other things. They work fairly well with the community to be good citizens. They do recieve some backlash about their success, but I also attribute that to their skin color as some people don’t want a person of any color to do better than themselves.</p>
<p>I lived here before the casino and it was much worse for the tribal members. The money has come with some questionable activities by a few over the years, but overall it’s done far more good than harm.</p>
<p>I think Opie has a good point. It depends on how the casino money is used. If it’s used for education, seed money for small businesses, and the like, it could do a lot of good. Just distributing the money to tribal members, though, cannot be a good thing in most cases.</p>
<p>I agree it’s probably all in how the income is handled. If a significant amount is simply doled out as cash to the members then I think there’s a lot of potential to do more harm than good. If most of it is going towards enabling functions such as better schools. housing, medical care, etc. I think it’d do more good than harm. I do think it’s a double-edged sword that has to be handled carefully.</p>
While there’s sure to be some of this, in this case the points were being raised by a member of the tribe itself. He was frustrated that many of the young people now have no interest in education because of the perception of ‘no need’ for it.</p>
<p>That article states that the payout is about $7k per month per person and that for kids it’s placed in a trust fund till they’re 18. For one who grows up entirely within this entitlement that means they’re handed $1.5 million dollars (minus taxes) when they turn 18. One has to wonder what effect this will have on the kids who grow up knowing they’re going to have this windfall. Judging from many of the kids who inherit wealth at a young age like this it could be adverse. I think most estate planning professionals advise to avoid handing 18 year olds large cash windfalls and to defer to at least 25. According one I listened to, they say that if an 18 y/o boy gets a large sum like this the first thing they do is buy a Corvette which is followed shortly by a crashed Corvette and one can only hope the boy survices intact.</p>
<p>the backlash I was speaking of was in my town.</p>
<p>Here’s another thought to consider… Any 18 year old who comes into that kind of money can be a disaster, not just the ones with reddish skin. </p>
<p>In the last few years I’ve noticed an increase in wealthy kids of different skin colors dying doing truly dumb things. Street racing seems to be the thing… Alot of smoldering BMWs with just bits of the kid left or worse the dead kid and dead innocent victim in very nice neighborhoods. I don’t think it’s a problem for just the indians.</p>
<p>I agree - the problems associated with receiving a windfall of cash for an 18 y/o have nothing to do with race and the examples stated by the estate planning attorney (trying to convince people not to leave their estate such that an 18 y/o inheritor gets to spend it) had nothing to do with race. None of this discourse has anything to do with race; it’s really about a segment of the population in this unique circumstance.</p>
<p>What I’m seeing here and is unique here though is a large group of people in line to receive this windfall and potentially suffering for it. Imagine every single 18 y/o in a particular community all getting hundreds of thousands to over a million bucks all at once - even while many of them are still in HS. </p>
<p>It seems that the tribes would be better off setting up another payout scheme but maybe there’s a legal issue.</p>
<p>btw - I have no problem with Indian gaming and no problem with legalized non-reservation gambling either - and I don’t gamble.</p>
<p>"btw - I have no problem with Indian gaming and no problem with legalized non-reservation gambling either - and I don’t gamble. "</p>
<p>Me neither. I’m no good at it and too smokey for me. </p>
<p>I think what your talking about is also known as the lottery curse. Boy I wish I was afflicted. </p>
<p>You know, I don’t know how I would act if I never had a disappointment the rest of my life because of a windfall. I’d like to think I behave a certain way, but until placed in that position who knows. </p>
<p>Hear that God! Test me the other way for once, the lotto’s at 105 million, why don’t we see if I stay the same guy? you listening god? I spent my $2 lets test me with too much money for a change of pace.</p>
<p>I think the biggest effect would be growing up knowing you’re going to have the windfall and essentially guaranteed income for life as opposed to being older and coming into the windfall. By then one’s character is largely already shaped. This kind of phenomenon must have some psychological effect - especially when it’s happening to most your peers as well.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the casinos are good for the tribes but I know they are bad for the rest of us. Gambling should not be legalized and state lotteries are nothing more than pernicious taxes on the most ignorant and desperate in society.</p>
<p>I don’t think we can successfully ward off a lot of social ills like prostitution, alcoholism, drug addiction or gambling addictions by outlawing them but government certainly ought not be in the business of profiting from them.</p>
<p>Besides the local numbers runner had a better payout when I was a kid than the state lottery has plus you didn’t have to pay taxes on it.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we can successfully ward off a lot of social ills like prostitution, alcoholism, drug addiction or gambling addictions by outlawing them but government certainly ought not be in the business of profiting from them.”</p>
<p>I am kind of with higherlead on this one. Gambling addiction does tremendous harm in society. And if gambling weren’t so readily available, fewer people would be exposed and become addicts. But I don’t think you can turn back the clock now. Now that the addicts have been created, they will just go underground and end up addicting as many people as legalized gambling does now.</p>
<p>Tell me how a state sponsored lottery is good for society. The payout is only about 40% and then the state and feds tax that. Have you been in working class or poor neighborhood and seen who is buying lottery tickets? You pay a buch for a dream and lot of people who can ill afford it are buying a fi****ll of dreams and anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of statistics knows at the end of the day they will get 40% of those dollars back and pay tax on that. It is despicable. And where does the money go? In my state it is to build stadiums to house the professional sports teams of billionaires.</p>
<p>At some point, fairness has to prevail when it comes to native Americans. Look, for over 100 years our government ignored agreements and treaties. And I won’t go into detail about the real crimes committed against Indians by THEIR (i.e. ours) government over the years. In my opinion, the wealth now earned by SOME tribes is long overdue compensation. And besides, the casino owned by your local tribe may have enriched your local reservation, but if you’ve ever seen places like the Yakima Nation, the Hopi Nation, the Ogala Nation, and even places in the Northeast (the Onadoga lands in upstate New York), these places and their peoples are not flush with cash. They remain impoverished and isolated culturally.</p>
I spent my $2 lets test me with too much money for a change of pace.</p>