Seminole Tribe Case Study

Impact of Gaming on Seminole Indians

The Seminole Tribe of Florida is one of the wealthiest tribes in the United States of America. They are ranked number 2 in casino owning tribes according to USA Online Casino Blog and have become the first American Indian tribe to be considered a bullish corporation according to Indian Country Today. As of 2015 the tribe rakes in 2.2 billion dollars a year in gambling revenue alone. This kind of amazing economic prosperity is an anomaly in Native American society. In a study, it showed that “Native Americans have a poverty rate 2 1/2 times the national average…” How is it possible that the Seminole Tribe of Florida has been able to amass such wealth in a time when Native Americans are doing worse than

ever before? It comes down to their reputation as fighters, history of perseverance, and a little bit of luck.
The Seminole tribe began with groups of Lower Creek Indians migrating to Florid in the 1700’s to avoid the powerful Upper Creeks and pressure from English colonists. The tribe also consists of Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Cherokees, but what made the Seminoles unique was their mixed race with African Americans who were given asylum by the Spanish in Florida and fled the slave trade. In the late 1770’s this mix of Native Americans and African Americans became the Seminole tribe of Florida. The word Seminole comes from the creek and Spanish words for “wild people” “runaway”. They were a civilized tribe, wore clothes like white men and followed a Christian faith. This is one of the reasons that they have been so prosperous, Nathan Bruce Duthu, a Professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College attributes their ability to “fuse Indian life with the ‘white way’ of making decisions and conducting business”.
Another factor in their incredible success is their resilience. In the nineteenth century the Seminoles went to war with the United States military three different times. At the end of these wars only a few hundred Seminoles remained hiding in the Everglades. The United States had already spent over twenty million dollars on the war and lost one thousand five hundred men. In 1842 the United States ended the war without a surrender from the Seminole tribe. The Seminoles stayed in the Everglades until 1907 when the Department of the Interior gave 540 acres in Dania (present day Hollywood) to the Seminoles to use. Half of the tribe went to this new reservation and the other half stayed in the everglades and formed what is now the Miccosukee Tribe of Seminole Indians of Florida.
The Seminoles that moved to these reservations made their living during the first half of the 20th century selling arts and crafts and agriculture. On July 21, 1957, the tribe voted on a Seminole Constitution which is federally recognized and also made the Seminole Tribe recognized officially by the government. It was an extremely important piece of legislation because it made them eligible for government assistance. In 1970 the ICC (Indian Claims Commission) won $12,347,500 in a settlement over the land taken from them by the U.S. military.
Nine years after this settlement the Seminole Tribe of Florida opened the first Native American Casino, a high-stakes bingo hall in Hollywood Florida named The Seminole Casino. This was a bold move seeing as though state and federal laws prohibited gambling and limited jackpots to one hundred dollars and could only be open two days a week. This new Seminole casino was open seven days a week with jackpots that payed out over one hundred dollars. This led to a long legal battle that eventually ended with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. This landmark decision made it legal for Natives to run gambling operations as long as some form of gambling was aloud in the state and they signed compacts to disperse some casino revenue back to the state. Since the opening of the Seminole Casino, every single native American tribe has either opened a gaming facility or at least looked into running one. Out of the five hundred and sixty-seven tribes in the United States, two hundred and thirty-eight tribes operate four hundred and seventy-four gaming facilities. This means that more than half of all tribes in the United States do not have a gaming facility.
The Seminole tribe has one man to thank for their major success in the gaming business, and he has absolutely no Seminole blood.

His name is Jim Allen, he has been with the tribe since 2001 as a professional manager. In 2004 the Seminole tribe licensed the Hard Rock name for their hotel-casinos in Tampa and Hollywood Florida. Jim Allen saw the success that the Hard Rock name brought to the tribe’s casinos and decided to approach the tribe about buying the brand. Allen said, “When I presented [the idea to buy Hard Rock] to the tribe, they frankly thought I was a little crazy”. The tribe beat out seventy-two potential bids for the Hard Rock brand and in 2007 they became the owners of Hard

Rock.
Growing up in Hollywood, Florida, I have seen first-hand the economic impact that this deal has had on the tribe.

Where the Hard Rock sits, used to be the Miccosukee Indian Village. It was a small attraction run by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Across the street from the village was the “Seminole Casino” and according to my grandma, “when it opened it was a big deal… it was the biggest thing that had happened in the area in a long time”. My mom went to high school with a lot of the kids from the Seminole tribe and she said that when she was in school “the Seminole kids were dirty and not known as wealthy”. After the tribe acquired the Hard Rock brand, their wealth flourished. My experience with the Seminoles in school was a little different. They were the richest kids in the school. They had the nicest cars, the coolest toys, and the best houses. I had one friend, Cameron Osceola, and he took me to the “Seminole box” at the Marlins game. It was a sky box that was free for Natives. All they had to do was reserve tickets at the tribal office. It was completely stocked with all the food and drinks you could imagine. My family was also invited almost every year to the “Seminole Christmas Party”. It was a huge Christmas party out on the Seminole reservation in Immokalee. If you weren’t Native It was by invitation only. If you got invited it was extremely special, reserved only for people who the tribe found deserving. Both of my parents were teachers and helped Seminole students

in school and my mother was class mates with a lot of the tribe members in high school, so we were really close with the tribe. Although we were not native, we were treated as equals at the event. We got to eat venison, fry bread and sofkee with them and participate in their gift exchange. This gift exchange was one of the most extravagant gift exchanges I have ever attended. All of the kids would gather in a circle by age around a literal mountain of gifts. Each kid was given a trash bag and when it was your age groups turn to go, the women of the tribe would put one of the gifts in each kid’s trash bag until the whole bag was full. The whole event was capped off with native drumming and singing. It was an amazing experience and it was all taken care of by casino revenues.
Besides providing amazing community events like this, the Seminole tribe puts tons of money back into the community. In 2014 the tribe built a multi-million-dollar recreation center for their youth. They also make sure every one of their tribe members are multimillionaires when they turn eighteen by paying dividends of the casino revenue directly to the tribal members in per-capita payments that total close to one hundred twenty thousand dollars a year for every adult and child that is one quarter Seminole that cannot be accessed until they are eighteen.
From the days of hiding in the everglades to the now incredibly prosperous nation that the Seminoles have become, one thing has stayed constant, their determination to keep moving forward and their perseverance to press on. When they retreated to the everglades, they made a life for themselves by becoming a tourist attraction. When they were sent to reservations they took advantage of the prime real-estate they were given and made a multibillion dollar corporation from a simple bingo hall. Their history is one of incredible entrepreneurship and never say die attitude and that is why they succeeded in the gaming business when so many other tribes have not been able to do it.