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

Licensing Boards Might Violate Federal Law: Regardless, They Are Terrible Policy

Competition is as American as baseball and apple pie. “May the best man win” is a sentiment so old it doesn’t care about your pronouns. The beneficial effects of competition on economic markets are well documented. So why do we let powerful business interests change the rules of the game when they tire of competing in the free market? Most of the time when an occupational license is enacted, it is the members of the regulated industry who push hardest in favor of the license. Honest competition may be fundamentally American, but thwarting that competition through licensing seems to be fundamentally Oklahoman. Oklahoma doesn’t have the most occupational licenses, but when they do license an occupation, the requirements tend to be more onerous than the same license in other states. But what if, instead of merely breaking the rules of fair play to keep out would-be competition, Oklahoma licensing boards are also breaking the law? Normally a concerted effort to lock out competition would v
Read more

Undo 802

Why is it that when conservatives suffer a major loss, they give up, accept the new status quo, and fall back to the next retreat position? When progressives suffer a major loss, they regroup and try again. And again. Until they finally wheedle the American public into giving in. I propose a change in strategy. The Oklahoma Legislature should make undoing State Question 802 its top legislative priority for 2021. This will not be an easy task (legislators seem to prefer avoiding difficult tasks) but it is a critical one. The normal legislative process, with all its pitfalls and traps for the unwary, will only bring the topic to another vote of the people. So why spend so much political capital and effort if the same result is possible? Three reasons.   First is the disastrous consequences of the policy. Forget that it enriches already-rich hospital and pharmaceutical executives. Forget that it gives the state incentives to prioritize the nearly-poor covered by expansion over the des
Read more

A Minimum Wage Hike is Bad for Oklahomans - Especially Those at or Near Minimum Wage

Proposed minimum wage hikes have sprung up across the country, and Oklahoma is not immune . Here is why a minimum wage hike will hurt Oklahomans.   What happens when the price of something goes up? Take oil, for instance. As of this writing, the price of oil is just above $59 a barrel. Imagine the Oklahoma legislature set a minimum price for oil, and that number doubled. If gas went from $2.50 a gallon to $5 or more would it change your behavior? Would you drive less? I know I would. This is a basic illustration of the laws of supply and demand . As the price goes up, demand goes down. This is true for oil. People would still have to get to work, but they might rethink that summer road trip. Those who live near the border might drive farther to buy gas from a neighboring state. These same principles hold true for all commodities.   Why wouldn’t it apply just as much to labor ? If you have to pay more for each employee-hour worked, wouldn’t you start to cut back on the nu
Read more

Liability In the Time of Covid: When Should Businesses Be Sued for the Spread of Infectious Disease?

When businesses reopen, what liability should they face related to the spread of Covid? Can businesses who remained open during the pandemic, or those who were open before the lockdowns began, be held liable if their customers caught the virus within the businesses’ walls? If so, what would a customer-plaintiff need to prove?   Defending even a meritless lawsuit can be prohibitively expensive. For this reason, it is important to define ahead of time what harms can lead to successful lawsuits. Limitations on causes of action can reduce unwarranted suits by kicking them out of the legal system earlier in the process. So what should businesses be liable for? There are two distinct categories of business liability that might arise from Covid. The first is products liability. The second is liability for infection spread within a business.   Products Liability First, any willful fraud perpetrated in relation to Covid should be severely punished. This would include selling f
Read more