Skip to main content

Compact Dispute Solution: End the Casino Monopoly


With Governor Stitt and Oklahoma’s tribes at loggerheads over the gaming compact, it seems like a good time to reconsider the tribes’ gambling monopoly altogether. While there is only one Las Vegas, Oklahoma is a casino state. And regardless of the dispute between the governor and the tribes or its outcome, Oklahoma will remain a casino state. The question we should ask ourselves is, why should the tribes be exclusively able to operate casinos?

As I understand the history, casino gambling exclusively allowed of tribes in other states arose out of a legitimate need for impoverished reservations to generate some cash flow. Reservations, in my opinion, are basically great big quasi-autonomous concentration camps. In Arizona, where I lived for nearly a decade, I found reservations to be sad, undeveloped, generally poverty-stricken places with a few poorly-exploited natural attractions that tourists could have attended in greater numbers if anybody had the incentive to promote them. It’s easy to understand why tribes in those circumstances would jump at the chance to generate a relatively easy cash flow from gambling attractions, limited to the geographic confines of the reservations, and why sympathetic lawmakers would agree to let it happen.

But Oklahoma does not have reservations. Consequently, tribal members have largely fully integrated into the prevailing culture and have benefitted by apparently becoming just as prosperous as any other group of people. Congress still recognizes Oklahoma’s reservation-less tribes, and this grants the tribes some privileges others of us do not enjoy. Given history, this might well be justified, but it is not apparent that there is now, or ever really was, a strong justification for the grant of a monopoly over an industry other than that it happened elsewhere. Casinos in this state are not restricted to specific territories, although the laws and regulations on permissible locations can be restrictive, confusing, and arbitrary.

Thus, casinos in Oklahoma are fairly ubiquitous, and they tend to be located close to the interstates and are common on our borders. That’s just good business. The largest casino is practically on the border between Texas and Oklahoma on I-35. As any frequent traveler on I-44 and I-35 knows, when headed north out of Texas on either of these two highways, it can be quite the adventure dodging all the vehicles with Texas plates slowing for the exits to the casinos. After mile marker 5 or 6, though, traffic becomes relatively clear.

That’s the main reason casino gambling will not be shut down in Oklahoma, no matter what happens with compact negotiations and legal disputes. Casinos bring too much money into the state, even with tribes being the primary beneficiaries of surrounding states’ inhabitants’ gambling habits.

So, if casino gambling is not going away and it’s already pretty much all over the place even with the difficult-to-understand restrictions on their locations, why should the tribal monopoly continue? A more competitive casino gambling industry is likely to bring even more money into the state. Competitive industries are generally larger and richer than monopolized ones. Sure, to some extent Oklahoma’s casinos compete with those in Las Vegas, Louisiana, New Jersey and other states, but the head-to-head competition that made Las Vegas great is relatively muted in Oklahoma by its limitation to tribes.

This is not just a practical issue. It is also a moral one. As Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) pointed out to a U.S. Senator in the movie, The Aviator, granting monopolies is downright un-American. For those who have a problem with making the expansion of the gambling industry a moral imperative, keep in mind that while casino gambling is exploiting a vice, so is selling liquor in a bar, and so is selling state-sponsored lottery tickets out of a neighborhood convenience store. If people want to keep casinos out of their communities, there are legal means to do so, some of which are far more likely to prevail over, say, a Steve Wynn wanting to open a casino than over tribes wanting to do the same.

So the bottom line is this. Let’s end the tribal monopoly over casino gambling in Oklahoma and open the industry to anyone willing to compete.

Byron Schlomach is Director of the 1889 Institute and can be reached at bschlomach@1889institute.org.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.


Popular posts from this blog

Gratitude for Restrained Government, and Restraints on Government

We at the 1889 Institute spend a lot of time critiquing government . I mean a lot . It’s what we do: we want to make government the best it can be, and that starts with identifying its flaws . But it is important, from time to time, to acknowledge that on the whole, Americans have it pretty good when it comes to governance. Here’s what I’m thankful for in government this year:   National defense . We live in perhaps the freest society that has ever existed. That would assuredly not be so if it were not for our strong commitment to deterring every foreign threat to our national sovereignty. What use is restrained government if a country is not safe from foreign invaders? Courts . Courts not only determine who is guilty of a crime and who is not, they also provide a forum to resolve sometimes vicious disputes without violence. If free trade is the bridge to human flourishing, then a legal system that upholds property rights, enforces contracts, and deters crime forms t...
Read more

Protecting Your Rights: Interpreting Law by Its Plain Meaning

When deciding whether people have broken laws, should judges consider the intent of the legislators who wrote the law? Or simply consider the plain language of the law as written? Legal scholars have debated this question for decades. However, there is only one answer that protects We The People. The Declaration of Independence states, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This means, among other things, that only laws actually voted on by the people (or their validly elected representatives) can be legitimately enforced. Any purpose not written into the law was not voted on, and so should not be imposed. What does this have to do with interpreting laws? In the republican form of government, the citizens speak through their elected representatives. These representatives pass laws collectively, almost always through two legislative bodies (House and Senate) and an executive (President or...
Read more

Oklahoma Elections: For Insiders Only?

When is election day? Most people probably assume it’s the first Tuesday in November. That makes sense, since that’s the date for statewide elections, and, in even numbered years, federal elections as well. Would it surprise you to learn that there is an election scheduled in Oklahoma every single month in 2019? That is not to say that every district has an election every month. That would be a hassle - the well-engaged citizen would have to make it to his local precinct every 4 weeks to make sure his views are adequately expressed. The slipshod way local elections are scheduled is far more shocking and less predictable than that. One would be forgiven for thinking, on first glance, that Oklahoma allows government bodies to change lawmakers and raise taxes through oddly scheduled, poorly noticed elections on (almost) whichever Tuesday they want. However, in reality there are “only” 15 days per year when local elections can be scheduled. Still, this means that the party in p...
Read more

Present Reforms to Keep the Ghost of State Questions Past from Creating Future Headaches

Oklahoma, like many western states, allows its citizens to directly participate in the democratic process through citizen initiatives and referendums. In a referendum, the legislature directs a question to the people — usually to modify the state constitution, since the legislature can change statutes itself. An initiative requires no legislative involvement, but is initiated by the people via signature gathering, and can be used to modify statute or amend the constitution. Collectively, the initiatives and referendums that make it onto the ballot are known as State Questions.   Recently, there have been calls to make it more difficult to amend the constitution. At least two proposals are being discussed. One would diversify the signature requirement by demanding that a proportional amount of signatures come from each region of the state. The other would require a sixty percent majority to adopt a constitutional amendment rather than the fifty percent plus one currently in place. ...
Read more