Tribal gaming up 3.4 percent, best showing in three years

Indian casinos thumbed their noses at the recession in 2011.

Tribal gaming operations across the U.S. recorded their best annual performance in three years, growing revenues nationwide by 3.4 percent.

According to Casino City’s annual Indian Gaming Industry Report, the nation’s 460 tribal casinos in 28 states collected $27.427 billion in gaming revenues in 2011.

“Despite a sluggish economy in 2011, Indian gaming sustained a modest growth to bring it above its pre-recession gaming revenue level,” Southern California economist Alan Meister wrote in the report, which is being released nationally today .

The 2011 increase followed a less than 1 percent increase in 2010, a 1 percent decline in 2009, growth of 1.2 percent in 2008, and a 4.1 percent increase in 2007 .

Meister spent much of 2012 collecting data from tribal casinos across the U.S. covering 2011’s results. For the most part, financial figures from Indian casinos are privately held.

In an interview, Meister said his biggest surprise was that California’s 68 Indian casinos grew gaming revenues collectively by almost 2 percent in 2011 after three straight years of annual declines.

California is the nation’s largest Indian casino market, with its $6.91 billion in gaming revenues in 2011 accounting for 25 percent of the total market.

“It was good to see California move back into a positive trend,” Meister said. “California’s economic recovery has been lagging behind the rest of the nation, so it was good to see the state once again contribute toward the national growth.”

Later this year, Station Casinos will open the $800 million Graton Resort & Casino near Santa Rosa, Calif., that the company is operating for the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

During 2011, 12 Indian gaming facilities opened across the nation, including the Gun Lake Casino in Michigan that is owned by the Gun Lake Band of Pottawatomi Indians and managed by Station Casinos. However, six casinos that were open in 2010 had closed by 2011, giving the market a cumulative growth of six properties.

In all, the nation’s Indian casinos operated 341,112 slot machines in 2011, an increase of 1.8 percent over 2010, and 7,704 table games, a decline of 1.6 percent.

Oklahoma, which replaced Connecticut as the No. 2 Indian gaming state a few years ago, continued its trend with the highest single-year increase of the top 10 states. Oklahoma’s 115 Indian casinos grew revenues by 7.7 percent to $3.4 billion over 2010.

The top two states, California and Oklahoma, accounted for 38 percent of the nation’s Indian gaming revenues. The top five Indian gaming states — California, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida and Connecticut — accounted for 61 percent of the total gaming revenues. Meanwhile, the top 10 — which added Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York into the mix — was accountable for 86 percent of the total.

Arizona’s 22 Indian casinos — one fewer than in 2010 — had the second-highest increase of any state in the top 10, coming in at No. 6 with $1.76 billion in gaming revenues, a 7.3 percent increase.

In Florida, gaming revenues increased 4.6 percent.

Meister said 65 percent of Indian gaming facilities nationwide grew gaming revenues in 2011, which he saw as a sign that the sector was climbing out of the recession. However, he was unsure whether Indian casinos would ever again experience double-digit, year-over-year growth, which was the norm between 1989 and 2006.

“When the economy gets rolling again, it’s possible,” Meister said. “You just never know for sure.”

Meister said the “anecdotal” information on 2012 shows the positive trend was continuing in the Indian casino market.

Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal.
com or 702-477-3871. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.