Parlors on Reservations Not a Panacea, Tribes Discover : BINGO! Indians Aren’t Always the Winners

When a high-stakes bingo operation came to this poverty-marred 32,000-acre reservation in the Coachella Desert near Palm Springs in 1983, tribal members rejoiced over its promise of jobs and money for all.

Instead, the bingo business was soon closed amid a bitter intratribal feud that pitted relative against relative and neighbor against neighbor over skimpy returns for the Morongo tribe.

In late 1984, the 800-member tribe tried again, this time with a new bingo hall, a contract reviewed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and fewer stars in their eyes.

Now, 50 tribal members work at the bingo hall, some of them in management positions, and the tribe is receiving 75% of the gross proceeds, with the other 25% going to the management company. In three years, the tribe will gain full control of the business.

Earnings Not Disclosed

Tribal officials refuse to disclose their total earnings, but the tribe has established a bank account and a scholarship program and made dividend payments totaling $6,400 to tribal members over the past two years, according to Robert Martin, 35, the tribal chairman.

“Most importantly, there are people working in the bingo hall that didn’t have jobs before,” Martin said, “but bingo alone won’t make us self-sufficient.”

The Morongos’ story reflects the heartbreak and opportunity that often accompany Indian bingo, which is now an entrenched part of Indian life and culture throughout the nation, particularly in California.

Like many other tribes hosting the game, the Morongos have learned that bingo is not an instant bonanza but a delicate business with its own set of problems.

At least 105 Indian bingo operations--one fourth of them in California--have opened in 30 states since the first started in 1978 on the Seminole Indian Reservation near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, which generally supports the ventures as a form of economic development.

The bingo operations have also opened the door to other forms of gambling. The Rincon Indian Reservation in northern San Diego County began augmenting bingo with card games Oct. 4, and three adjacent tribes may follow suit.

Most Indian bingo parlors resemble mammoth warehouses where thousands of non-Indians gather each night and spend an average $50 or more each to win new cars or cash prizes of up to $50,000.

Together, “they generate at least $100 million a year nationwide,” said Carl Shaw, spokesman for the assistant secretary of Indian affairs, Department of the Interior, in Washington. “However, we believe that is a very conservative figure.”

Exact profits are difficult to assess because tribes often will not reveal figures and because the games remain unregulated by federal or state authorities, Shaw said.

“The tribes don’t have to tell us what they do with their money,” Shaw said. “These are sovereign bodies.”

Some Southern California Indian bingo operations may earn $1 million a month or more in gross proceeds, according to state prosecutors who are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to permit the states to regulate the games.

For many tribes, high-stakes bingo games have meant unexpected wealth, investment opportunities and hope for independence from federal grants and minimum-wage jobs.

For Henry Duro, 36, chairman of the San Manuel band of Mission Indians who opened a bingo palace in July near San Bernardino, the promise of financial security means a future of promise for his children.

“Look at me, I can barely read and write,” said Duro, a short, heavy-set man with a ready smile. “I see it as tuition for college for my kids. That’s where it’s at.”

But for others, bingo has meant fraud, divisiveness and false promises.

‘Live and Learn’

“It is both the Indians’ fault and the management’s fault that a rat ran away with the cheese here,” said Susan Osuna, a member of the Barona tribe in San Diego County, which saw old family feuds exacerbated when their former bingo manager was charged with rigging games. “We live and learn. We are not going to be ripped off again.”

Where Indian bingo has succeeded, the big question on the reservation has become: “Exactly how should we spend all that money?”

For people unaccustomed to handling large amounts of money, who have lived in poverty on desolate land and who have grown accustomed to a life style based on kinship, sharing and federal subsidies, it is a question that consumes daily life, Indian tribal leaders said.

“It takes up a lot of our tribal council’s time,” Martin said. “Half the time we meet, twice a month, bingo seems to take precedence over everything.”

Tribal members often demand hefty per capita payments, while tribal leaders want to channel bingo proceeds into housing, social programs, business ventures or even political campaigns that could, in their view, upgrade the general standard of living. Others want museums and cultural centers to preserve eroding traditional values.

Tribal Harmony Strained

While some tribes and their members have found some or all of these things once their bingo operations started to return profits, they often have had to pay a price in terms of tribal harmony.

The Sycuan Indian Reservation near El Cajon in San Diego County, for example, opened a bingo hall in 1983 that provides jobs for 20 of the tribe’s 58 members.

The Sycuans said they have a tribal trust fund and each member between the ages of 18 and 60 has a life insurance policy. There are plans to use some of their returns this year as backing for loans to build 14 homes on the reservation in the $55,000-to-$70,000 range.

But some residents here said they would rather have cash than a new house and have taken their complaints to tribal leaders.

“They promised us a lot of things, and I haven’t seen nothing yet,” said Juanita Ramirez, 67, a Sycuan tribal member who was angry at, among other things, having received only $1,800 in dividend payments so far from bingo proceeds.

Even Anna Sandoval, 50, tribal chairwoman for 14 years, still rolls tortillas, which she sells at the bingo palace. It is a kind of insurance, she said.

“Sometimes I wonder if it is really happening or am I going to wake up and find it fell apart,” Sandoval said. Bingo, she added, “can destroy with greed.”

The Sycuans can only hope to achieve the accomplishments of some of the first tribes to enter the high-stakes bingo business.

The Seminoles of Florida have used some of their bingo proceeds to build three multipurpose centers, two gymnasiums and three senior citizens’ centers, said James Shore, general counsel for the tribe. Meanwhile, the tribes’ annual budget soared from $900,000 in 1978 to $8.5 million in 1985.

Flexing Political Muscle

The Seminoles have even started to flex some political muscle with their bingo proceeds. In 1984, the tribe reportedly contributed $55,350 to candidates running for the Florida House and Senate.

Similarly, the Fond du Lac tribe in Minnesota opened a bingo hall in 1981 that generates $500,000 a year, has lowered unemployment on the reservation from 60% to 20%, and has funded the construction of a preschool, gymnasium and clinic on their reservation, said Ferdinand Martineau, a tribal council member. In a joint-venture with the City of Duluth, the tribe in September sponsored a new bingo hall in the center of town.

But even where it works to a tribe’s advantage, Indian bingo has trampled on old Indian ways of life.

“There is a cost in community harmony and life style on the reservations when they move into these large corporate institutions,” said Duane Champagne, professor of sociology at UCLA. “The values of the old community may have to be transformed.”

“If bingo overwhelmingly controls the income of a reservation, it becomes their way of life--and it stinks,” said Jeanette Costo, 77, a Cherokee and co-founder with her husband, Rupert, 80, a Cahuilla, of the American Indian Historical Society in San Francisco. “But when they haven’t got it (money or jobs) and it doesn’t seem possible to get it, they go into bingo. Why not?”

In answer to that question, Rudolf Corona, California deputy attorney general, points to the Barona Indian Reservation.

“It brought nothing but grief and division to this tribe,” Corona said. “I don’t know of any Indian bingo operation in the state that doesn’t have problems.”

The Morongo, Cabazon, Barona and Soboba reservations of California have all seen their gambling operations stumble over fraud, contractual disputes or misused funds at one time or another.

Guilty Plea

In April, the Barona tribe’s former bingo manager, Stewart Siegel, 49, pleaded guilty to rigging games that diverted $139,000 to his confederates. Their bingo hall is closed, but complaints linger that the reservation has not received its full share of profits from the operation.

The Soboba tribe of Riverside County, for another, has filed a $2.5-million lawsuit against the former managers of their operation, Indian Bingo Consultants, and their partners, Western Recreational Properties, said George Forman, the attorney representing the tribe.

The lawsuit alleges embezzlement and conversion of tribal funds and property connected to the game on the part of the management company, Forman said.

“We deny that,” said Gary Verburg, a Phoenix attorney representing the management companies. “If there were embezzled funds, there would have been federal indictments. This is a contract dispute.”

“Some tribes that started early in the game have contracts that do not protect them so well,” acknowledged Barbara Karshmer, attorney for the Morongos who negotiated their second bingo contract. “But the situation has evolved, and Indian people are learning from other tribes’ experiences and are able to make better decisions and judgments.”

The Morongos are one of two Riverside County tribes embroiled in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could bring the Indian bingo phenomenon to a halt.

The case, expected to be heard as early as January, will determine whether states may prohibit high-stakes bingo games and other commercial gambling on Indian reservations.

The dispute arose when the Morongo and Cabazon tribes went to court seeking an injunction against enforcement of California and county ordinances against tribal bingo and card parlor games.

California law allows only charitable organizations to operate bingo games and limits jackpots to $250. The Indian bingo operations lure players with prizes such as new cars and jackpots of up to $50,000.

A federal district court issued an injunction, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it, saying Indian tribes have an “inherent sovereign” right to conduct gambling for non-Indians on the reservation. The tribe’s interest in raising funds outweighs the state’s interest in regulating gambling, the appellate court said.

Ruling Appealed

State Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

In arguments before the Supreme Court, Corona and other state officials have argued that Indian bingo operations are easy targets for organized crime members who would take advantage of the Indians and use the games in illegal skimming and money laundering schemes.

In interviews with The Times, state prosecutors said that while ties to organized crime “associates” have been discovered in some Indian bingo operations, no indictments or arrests have resulted. The reason, they said, is because these figures generally lurk in the background, shielded by front men, making it hard to build a case.

But one Riverside County attorney involved in the U. S. Supreme Court case said organized crime is a “minor issue.”

“Obviously, when you go before the U.S. Supreme Court, you have to have a selling point . . . and it helps to have the specter of organized crime in the background,” said Glenn Salter, deputy county counsel.

Regardless, the case has cast a shadow over many Indians whose lives have been transformed under their bingo operations.

Christine Marcus said she has spent a lifetime on the Morongo Indian Reservation getting by as a maid or at low-paying jobs in local offices and factories.

This year, at 61, she became a supervisor in charge of 20 floor clerks, some of them Morongo Indians, working inside the sprawling Morongo Indian Bingo hall.

“If not for bingo I would be doing maid work or laundry somewhere,” said Marcus, whose husband died in December. “I’ve never had so much responsibility before. I love this job.”