Commentary

I agree with the Star Tribune's March 29 editorial ("Gambling's costs must be counted") in that there are various costs to consider when it comes to gaming expansion.

But some of the highest costs were not mentioned.

For much of my life, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe was one of the poorest tribes in the country. There were few job opportunities in east central Minnesota for band members on the reservation, and those who ventured off the reservation were generally the last hired and first fired.

Poverty was all we knew.

The only things we had that anyone wanted were our handmade birchbark baskets and handpicked berries, which people bought as they drove to and from the lakes during the summer.

Generation after generation of my people lived like this -- in poverty, often dejected, even hopeless.

Finally we got the opportunity to start overcoming our impoverishment when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and we signed gaming compacts with the state of Minnesota.

The goal of these compacts was to create jobs and boost the economy in greater Minnesota.

The compacts recognized the needs of rural areas like ours that were home to Indian tribes, and they purposely limited gaming to tribal lands in order to make sure local needs would be met.

In 1991 we opened Grand Casino Mille Lacs in a tin shed with a dirt parking lot. Customers came anyway, and finally we saw a ray of hope for our people and neighbors who desperately needed jobs.

We haven't forgotten the deeply impoverished conditions we lived in until we started to make progress 20 years ago. That poverty forced many in our community to rely on the state and federal governments to meet their basic needs.

That's why we have reason to fear gaming expansion's impact on our region.

The Star Tribune claimed that the well-established tribal casinos near the Twin Cities would be able to hold their own against new competition.

But imagine being one of our 4,200 Mille Lacs Band members, our 4,000 casino and tribal government employees, or the thousands of other people who rely directly or indirectly on Grand Casinos for their family livelihoods.

We live here. We will have to face the consequences.

With two decades of experience in the gaming business, we know our audience. Our gamers base their decisions on location.

Around half of our current customers come from the Twin Cities, which is about one hour from Grand Casino Mille Lacs and 45 minutes from Grand Casino Hinckley.

Imagine these customers having a new gaming facility (or more) just a few minutes away; why would they drive any farther?

We also know that the Minnesotans who want to gamble are already doing so.

Adding more gaming facilities won't result in more customers. It will just spread the customers and profits more thinly among gaming facility operators.

Grand Casino revenues are already thinly spread. Nobody here has become wealthy; people have just been put in a position to provide for their families.

In fact, less than 1 percent of American Indians in Minnesota have gained substantial wealth from gaming. Mille Lacs Band members are just beginning to overcome the effects of decades lived in poverty.

The Star Tribune indicated that gaming expansion might be among the "least-bad alternatives to solve a major budget crisis."

It might seem "least-bad" now, but I worry that within months of gaming expansion, many people in my region who are self-sufficient today will face an uncertain future. Some will need to turn to the state and federal governments for support.

Whatever the state might gain in gaming revenues, it could easily lose in funding government support programs. I urge the state to factor this high -- yet avoidable -- cost into its future budgets.

Marge Anderson is chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, which operates Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Grand Casino Hinckley.