Word: casino
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...decades later, when high-stakes bingo halls were sprouting up across the state, the Lytton descendants decided to re-form and secure federal recognition, which is needed to own a casino. They bypassed the traditional regulatory process and piggybacked on a lawsuit filed by a group of Northern California Indians who claimed the Federal Government had improperly terminated their tribes in the 1960s. When a judge ruled in the group's favor in 1991, the Lyttons were also formally recognized...
Obtaining reservation land on which to build the casino was even easier. Sam Katz, a Philadelphia financier who has arranged multimillion-dollar financing packages for sports stadiums from Denver to Miami, has become the Lyttons' guardian angel. Katz and his partners found and bought a 10-acre parcel of land for a casino amid the graying stores and modest homes of San Pablo on the East Bay, a 25-minute drive from San Francisco. You might call it a "gaming reservation" because the Lyttons do not intend to live there. Katz has acquired a second piece of property--near Windsor...
Subsequently, Martin negotiated a deal with Paragon Gaming, a Las Vegas company, to develop and manage a casino. Paragon is headed by Diana Bennett, a gaming executive and daughter of Vegas veteran and co-founder of the Circus Circus Casino William Bennett. Martin's Augustine Casino opened last July. With 349 slot machines and 10 gaming tables, it's the fifth and by far the most modest casino in the Palm Springs area. But it stands to make a lot of non-Indian investors--and one Indian adult--rich...
...that it has changed the face of Indian country. Some long-dispersed tribes, aided by new, non-Indian financial godfathers, are regrouping to benefit from the gaming windfall. Others are seeking new reservations--some in areas where they never lived, occasionally even in other states--solely to build a casino. And leaders of small, newly wealthy tribes now have so much unregulated cash and political clout that they can ride roughshod over neighboring communities, poorer tribes and even their own members...
...exactly, is benefiting? Certainly Indians in a few tribes have prospered. In California, Christmas came early this year for the 100 members of the Table Mountain Rancheria, who over Thanksgiving picked up bonus checks of $200,000 each as their share of the Table Mountain Casino's profits. That was in addition to the monthly stipend of $15,000 each member receives. But even those amounts pale beside the fortunes made by the behind-the-scenes investors who bankroll the gaming palaces. They walk away with up to hundreds of millions of dollars...