SNOQUALMIE — For nearly 50 years, the Snoqualmie Indians were unrecognized by the federal government, partly because the tribe of 600 didn’t have a reservation of its own.
But Thursday night, the tribe arrived with a bang when the Snoqualmie Casino opened its doors.
The high-tech, 170,000-squarefoot casino is just off Interstate 90 on the Eastside and 30 minutes from downtown Seattle. It’s one of the state’s snazziest gaming venues, built on a reservation created especially for it.
Most important, said Snoqualmie tribal administrator Matt Mattson, the casino could transform the way the tribe’s members live.
Within a few years, Mattson hopes to create a health care center to cater to the needs of the tribe, which was federally recognized only in 1999.
And Mattson dreams of creating better housing and educational opportunities for Snoqualmie young people.
“It’s about raising the standard of living of all of our members,” Mattson said.
With the economy in freefall, nobody knows how successful the casino will be. The tribe borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to make the casino happen.
“We are definitely concerned about the economic conditions, but we’re still optimistic,” Mattson said.
Other tribes are concerned about the state’s quivering casino market as well.
The softening economy spurred by the collapse of the housing and credit markets is flattening years of skyrocketing revenues for Washington Indian casinos, according to gaming experts.
The issue is sensitive to tribal governments because gaming is often their primary source of revenue, funding things such as essential health services and local schools.
“Gaming is absolutely essential to tribal economies. On most reservations, there are no other economic drivers,” said Ernie Stebbins, the executive director of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, which lobbies for the industry.
Gambling relatively new
Though large-scale Indian gaming has been in Washington state for more than a decade, it was only around 1998 that revenues began to really take off.
That year Gov. Gary Locke signed an agreement allowing machine gaming for the first time. Today, slot machines remain banned, but gamblers can use mechanical machines that resemble slots.
Experts say machine gaming has driven the rapid increase in net gambling income among state Indian casinos over the past 10 years, which has rocketed from $159 million to more $1.3 billion annually, according to state statistics.
Those revenues, in turn, are poured into tribal economies, where the money is desperately needed.
Gaming revenue was essential, for instance, in allowing the Tulalip Tribes to create a homeless shelter and health care facilities and to fund education expenses for any member who wanted to go to college, said Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon. The first casino on the tribe’s reservation, in Snohomish County, was opened in 1992.
“It has increased our standard of living. We’re no longer the very, very poor,” Sheldon said. “We’re making improvements with better quality housing, education opportunities and also jobs.”
In some cases, the impacts have been practically instantaneous. The Kalispel Tribe’s Northern Quest Casino in Spokane County helped the tribe increase secondary school spending by $300,000 between 2004 and 2006.
There are problems in analyzing how the national economic downturn could affect the state’s 27 casinos, and by extension, the 22 tribes that rely on them for revenues.
Because large-scale tribal gaming is still relatively new — the first large Indian casino wasn’t built in Washington until 1991 — nobody knows exactly how gamblers will react to the economic crisis.
But gambling is not as resistant to a downturn as once thought, experts say. Gamblers don’t necessarily bet more as their financial woes increase.
“Tribal gaming, like all other casinos, is subject to economic cycles and is not recession-resistant. The idea that casino gaming is recession-resistant is a myth that never had any foundation in fact,” gaming industry expert Eugene Christiansen said in an e-mail. “Gaming is being hugely impacted by the current recession and credit crisis. If the economy continues to contract, gaming will continue to shrink.”
It’s particularly difficult to analyze Indian casinos’ performance because their financial data are generally not public record. The state aggregates the data annually but does not release financial information on individual casinos.
Tribal administrators emphasize that Indian casinos are more resistant to economic problems because they attract visitors mostly from their immediate areas. And the state as a whole has been less beset by troubles in the economy than other parts of the country.
But already, some casinos in Washington are creating contingency plans to deal with flattening revenues, which could affect the overall tribal economies.
Senior Tulalip officials have been holding meetings to address a dip in revenues, although Sheldon, the chairman, attributes the dip mostly to striking Boeing workers taking a break from gambling.
At the Lucky Eagle Casino in Thurston County, owned by the Chehalis Confederated Tribes, officials are also deciding how to deal with sagging revenue, although they won’t say by how much.
“Right now it’s a little too early to tell with the trending where revenue is going,” said casino general manager John Setterstrom. “But we’re forecasting into next year we’ll be flat or see a decrease. I think we’ve been in something of a bubble, a little slower to react to the economic problems than the rest of the country.”
Ron Charles, chairman of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe on the Kitsap Peninsula’s northern tip, said revenues are flat at the tribe’s casino, called The Point.
“Gaming is the first economic development I’ve seen on reservations that really works,” Charles said. “The tribes are really dependent on it. It needs to stay strong.”
Experts are in charge
After the Snoqualmies’ long slog to get permission and cash to build the casino, Tribal Administrator Mattson says he’s putting his faith in a team of gaming experts who are running the building.
And those officials insist that they have a strong business plan that will ensure the Snoqualmie Casino’s success.
The casino’s location is underserved, said vice president of marketing Matt Gallagher.
“Looking beyond gaming, this is more of an entertainment venue than just a casino,” Gallagher said. Recently, executives took Seattle P-I reporters on a tour of the facility. They pointed out the poker area, the luxurious cigar lounge and the blackjack tables.
They showed the reporters where superstar Jessica Simpson will perform Friday night.
Then they put a positive spin on the economic situation. Yes, the economy is soft, but things will be fine, they said.
“People want a good time, and they just want to have fun,” said Michael Barozzi the chief executive of the Snoqualmie Entertainment Authority, which operates the casino. “Everybody hopes for a perfect economy, but they’ll still need to enjoy themselves no matter what.”
P-I reporter Moises Mendoza can be reached at 206-448-8247 or moisesmendoza@seattlepi.com.
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