Casin onews source: Casper Star Tribune - http://www.casperstartribune.net
Tribes advance casino plans
By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent Monday, June 18, 2007
While the Northern Arapaho Tribe is on track to open its new Wind River Casino by year’s end, the Eastern Shoshone Tribe is two weeks away from wrapping up construction of a small casino site near Lander.
The Eastern Shoshone are also in the midst of buying 300 acres between Riverton and Lander for a larger casino site with room for hotel, restaurant and show venue facility development.
The two tribes share the Wind River Indian Reservation and will be competitors, each tribe with its own casinos.
“We’re moving toward an end of the year goal,” said Jim Conrad, general manager of the Northern Arapaho's new Wind River Casino outside Riverton. He said the 44,000-square-foot casino has walls going up amid the construction framework, across the Little Wind River and atop the bluff from current operations.
“We’ve changed the design somewhat” with creation of a nonsmoking section in the new casino building, with a separate heating and air conditioning system, he said. “That nonsmoking section will have 80 (gaming) machines."
The new Northern Arapaho casino has been long delayed, but appears to be on track for an end-of-year opening.
The current Wind River Casino facility (formerly 789 Bingo) has dropped all bingo games and now has almost 100 gaming machines and several blackjack tables, Conrad said, with 32 new machines added last week. The high-stakes slot machines were moved into the space once used for bingo.
The new casino is rising on 40 acres at a cost of $22.5 million. Currently there are 200 casino employees. The number of employees is expected to increase to an estimated 400 in three years.
Shoshone development
Ivan Posey, chairman of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, said the Shoshone Rose Casino, a 7,000-square-foot facility, is nearing completion a quarter mile outside Lander on the old Rocky Acres Campground site.
“We’ve hired a general manager named Ken Warner, who has Nevada gaming experience,” Posey said.
The Shoshone Rose won’t open until mid-August because of legal paperwork requirements that need to be resolved, Posey said. When opened, the Shoshone Rose will have 100 high-stakes gaming machines.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Shoshone are buying 300 acres eight miles north of Riverton along the highway, where tribal leaders hope to build a bigger casino and eventually a hotel, restaurant and entertainment venue.
“We have the financing all lined out,” Posey said. Still to be worked out is the transfer of the property into tribal trust status, a process that necessitates an environmental assessment under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The document is now in draft status.
Posey said the Eastern Shoshone Business Council has further work to do, to define in a revenue allocation plan, what percentages of gaming revenue will go to which areas of need -- such as education, elderly assistance, health care, economic development and so on.
Nationally, Indian gaming pulled in $25 billion in 2006, 11 percent more than the year before as the industry's explosive growth outpaced Las Vegas.
Federal figures announced June 4, compiled from 387 tribal facilities in 28 states, show Indian gaming revenue has nearly doubled in five years.
Indian casinos brought in $12.8 billion from gaming in 2001, $22.5 billion in 2005 and $25.1 billion in 2006, according to the National Indian Gaming Commission. The commission does not break those figures down per tribe, nor are the tribes obligated to reveal their gaming revenues. |
|
World Casino Directory 
Gambling Forums 
