How Much Money Do The Eastern Band Cherokee Get

The town of Cherokee in western N Carolina has about 2,000 people. In that location are a few strips malls, a museum defended to the history of the tribe.

And there's a casino. It's a actually big casino that's getting bigger.

The casino is endemic by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and managed past Harrah's. Information technology towers 21 stories above the boondocks, and in that location's more coming. In that location are 700 new rooms under construction along with 83,000-square feet of convention infinite.

The tribe is spending $330 million on the expansion, says tribal principal Richard Sneed.

"It'due south a large number," he said laughing. "It's a big number."

The Cherokee casino is undergoing a $330 million expansion.

With so much money at stake, he's at the middle of a feud with two other tribes, in part over the possibility of more casinos coming to N Carolina. The biggest fight is with the Catawba Nation of South Carolina, based in York Canton.

The Catawba had its own groundbreaking concluding spring for a casino across the border in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

The Cherokee have sued the Department of the Interior to stop it, and a federal guess has agreed to fast-track the litigation for early next year.

The Eastern Band's argument is that the Catawba Nation is getting special treatment, and the casino would be built on Cherokee ancestral land.

"We've made these strategic business concern decisions based on the laws and regulations that are in identify," Sneed said. "And now the rule book is being thrown out the window for the Catawba tribe. But it still applies to united states of america. It still applies to every other tribe who wants to aggrandize their gaming territory."

In 1993, the Catawba signed a settlement understanding with the state of Due south Carolina. The tribe received $fifty million, and, as part of that, agreed not to accept gambling, and then long every bit the state prohibited information technology.

Catawba Chief William Harris wants to open up a temporary casino in Cleveland County adjacent year.

And South Carolina has continually said no to gambling.

So the Catawba looked to a half dozen-canton "service area" in North Carolina, where Catawbas can receive federal benefits equally those who live on the official reservation. Cleveland County is part of that service area.

"Then subsequently that failure, there was a new tactic," Sneed said. "Which was to move into North Carolina."

The Catawba casino has divided North Carolina's politicians. Old Republican Gov. Pat McCrory opposed the project, forth with Autonomous Gov. Roy Cooper— and numerous legislative leaders, like Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger.

Only their hands are tied.

The land'south two Republican U.S. senators – Thom Tillis and Richard Burr – support the Catawbas' Kings Mountain plan. South Carolina developer Wallace Cheves of Skyboat Gaming, who is part of the Catawba development team, has given thousands of dollars in contributions to the Republican National Committee, too as more than $30,000 combined to groups supporting Tillis and Burr, according to NC Policy Watch.

The Section of the Interior had initially opposed the Kings Mount project but reversed its position terminal twelvemonth.

Sneed that because "because of politics, the rulebook is thrown out."

He added: "What happened in this instance is what'southward unremarkably referred to every bit 'reservation shopping.' Where you have a developer who will go find a tribe and say, we'll put up all the money, we'll do all the leg work. And once we get the casino approved, we're in for a percentage of the profits. That's substantially what'south happening there."

The Eastern Band operates 2 casinos in North Carolina – one in Cherokee, and another in Murphy, 60 miles away.

And despite a proliferation of gambling across the nation, the Cherokee casino is the closest place for full table gambling similar poker and craps for people in Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Charleston and Knoxville, Tennessee.

"They've had a monopoly, and patently contest is skilful. Information technology gives choice," said Howard Stutz of the CDC Gaming Reports in Las Vegas. "But they don't want it. "

He said the Catawba casino near Charlotte would siphon off a large part of North and Southward Carolina from the Eastern Band, whose Cherokee casino generated nearly $400 meg in revenue in 2018.

And the Georgia land legislature is considering legalizing gambling side by side year.

"I think the bigger danger for the Cherokee is Atlanta," Stutz said. "If Georgia comes effectually and legalizes a casino, that could really cut into their business organization."

The Catawba Nation has a trivial more than than 1,000 acres on two tracts of land, nigh Rock Loma, Southward Carolina.

Master William Harris saturday in his conference room there, showing off plans for the Two Kings Casino in Kings Mountain, which — disallowment the litigation — would open up in a temporary facility in the second half of 2021.

The temporary casino will start with all slot machines, and expand to table gambling as function of a $270 million full buildout.

"The idea is when it'south all said and washed, we're going to starting time out on 17 acres that will morph into a threescore-acre resort," Harris said.

He said the Kings Mountain location is close to perfect.

"Charlotte alone — it isn't shrinking," he said. "It just keeps growing. So the Charlotte metropolitan surface area? You could easily survive only off of that."

His casino will exist decided on the outcome of the lawsuit. But Harris said that when you lot look at the history of the tribe, his ancestors lived across the Carolinas.

"Our aboriginal land base was nearly all of South Carolina. Half of N Carolina. And into Virginia, southern Virginia," he said.

Meanwhile, the Cherokee appears to accept notched 1 victory this year.

The tribe opposed federal recognition for the Lumbee tribe, whose members mostly live on the border betwixt North Carolina and South Carolina, many in Robeson and Scotland counties.

Federal recognition would have meant federal money for members, and maybe a casino about two hours e of Charlotte.

Sneed, the Cherokee master, said the Lumbee recognition would have meant fewer resources for the Cherokee and other tribes.

He says he doesn't believe they are a existent tribe. He said the tribe failed such questions equally:

"Have you had a celebrated relationship with the federal government? Accept you had any treaties? Have you maintained governance over your people as a tribe? Things of that nature," Harris said.

Before the election, President Trump promised to piece of work for federal recognition for the Lumbee. But the Lumbee chief wrote a glum message on social media this week. He said he had a heavy heart because no Indian tribal recognition legislation was included in Congress's well-nigh recent spending neb and that "we were not successful."

Source: https://www.wfae.org/local-news/2020-12-23/tribes-battle-over-lucrative-casino-turf-in-north-carolina

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