Even small casinos benefit tribes

With unemployment rates reaching 80-90% on some reservations in remote and rural areas of the United States, any kind of economic development is a great boon to the reservation community. One example are the small gaming/casino operations of many tribes in North and South Dakota. Due to the small populations and tourist travel in those states, Indian reservations are rarely going to make mega-bucks off of casinos.

But that does not mean that the construction work and 30-40 jobs that small bingo and gaming establishments provide are not very valuable tribal economic development tools.

For example, a North Dakota newspaper reports that the Spirit Lake Dakotah Nation of North Dakota will break ground on Monday on a $3 million casino expansion.

The tribe will add 15,000 square-feet to the Spirit Lake Casino and Hotel and remodel another 7,700 square-feet of existing space. Two ballrooms, an updated hotel lobby, salon and conference room are part of the project.

Spirit Lake Casino to begin expansion (The Grand Forks Herald 6/12)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Economic Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.