States collect billions from casinos owned and operated by Indigenous Nations. This is a fact often missed.
These Nations run the casinos and take all the risk. However nearly every compact requires them to fork over cash to the state.
These payments are called revenue sharing or exclusivity fees. The legal hustle is real easy to understand. The state gives Nations an exclusive right to operate games. Now In theory, the state will not allow competing casinos.
In practice though, Nations pay states for the right to run businesses in their own territory. The state provides no services for this money. None. It is a direct payment from a Nation to a state.
The amounts are not small. In California, Indigenous Nations have paid over $500 million to the state in a single year. In Connecticut, the total is in the billions.
This system is the price of doing business under a federal law that forced Tribes to negotiate with states. It is a financial link that ties a Nation's success to payments to a government that was once its adversary.
State cash the checks and Indigenous Nations builds a clinic. This is the compact. This is the deal. And like every treaty before it, only one writes the rules.
