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To resuscitate tribal government budgets, some tribes around the region have opened their casinos and more will soon follow, including the Stillaguamish tribe’s Angel of the Winds Casino Resort in Arlington, the first casino west of the mountains scheduled to open, on May 13.

In Washington, 22 tribes operate 29 casinos on reservation lands, where they retain decision-making authority — despite Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order, in place until the end of May.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe was the first to open its facility in Worley, Idaho, on April 27, and the Kalispel tribe opened its facilities on May 5 north of Cusick, Pend Oreille County, and Airway Heights, just outside Spokane.

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At Stillaguamish, the reason for opening is simple, said Tribal Chairman Shawn Yanity: The tribe has bills to pay, loan payments to make and more than 850 laid-off employees eager to get back to work. The casino also has important impact in the local community: the tribe will donate $200,000 in casino proceeds to local food banks this week. Tribes are required to give away a portion of casino proceeds under their state compacts.

Those proceeds are a crucial source of funds for tribal governments. Donations of casino proceeds as well as jobs at tribal businesses are vital to communities all over the state.

Tribes across Washington together are one of the state’s top 10 employers, putting more than 30,715 people to work. More than King County government, Costco Wholesale, Starbucks, Safeway & Albertson’s, Walmart or Fred Meyer. Casinos employ many of those people, and most of those employees are non-Indian.

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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new...uf9QYp1H880dLnY

We have a lot of casinos on tribal land, and thus they are supposed to be sovereign entities as the tribes are independent nations not subject to annoying things like Inslee's petty little diktats.