Gambling College Improves the Odds for Tribal Casinos : Business: School teaches Native Americans how to run facilities. Goal is to replace non-Indian operators and keep more money, control for tribes.

Steve Hunt had never played a hand of poker, never stuffed a quarter in a slot machine. But what he is into now looks like it might pay off.

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These days he works at the Cache Creek Indian Bingo and Casino.

He is training for a job he hopes will improve the lot of members of his tribe.

And he likes the odds.

Hunt is no card shark. He’s here to learn the gambling business as his tribe considers whether to bet its economic future on opening a casino at its reservation on Vancouver Island, Canada.

“It’s kind of funny to find myself in this situation,” said Hunt, who grew up carving totem poles but now spends his time cleaning slot machines.

“I’ve never gambled,” he explained. “I don’t know how to play poker. I don’t even know how to play bingo. I guess I’ll learn.”

He is one of a dozen Native Americans enrolled at Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University, a tribal college near Davis. They are the first class in a two-year program that offers an associate’s degree with a certificate in Indian gaming studies.

A smaller program in Wisconsin has students studying on the Menominee Nation reservation.

As more tribes stake their economic future on gambling, they want Indian managers to protect their interests.

Hunt, 30, is a member of the Kwaguithl Band on Reserve Fort Rupert in Canada. A casino there could produce the millions of dollars that he said his tribe needs for housing, health care, education and cultural programs.

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Non-Indians make up 85% of the work force at the 131 Indian gaming centers in the United States and account for most of the management positions, according to the National Indian Gaming Assn.

Most of the $2.6 billion generated each year by tribal casinos goes to large corporations that manage the enterprises.

“At some of the reservations, anywhere from 65% to 85% of the income is getting away from the Indian people and going to management companies,” said DQ University’s president, Francis D. Becenti.

“That needs to change. Indian people need to start controlling their own gaming. It’s going to take years, because right now we don’t have the expertise to manage it ourselves.”

From the bingo floor to the boardroom, DQ students will spend two years as interns at Cache Creek learning the ropes. They come from the Paiute, Concow Nomalaki, Blackfoot, Kwakiutl, Tule River, Choctaw, Karuk Shasta, Shawnee, Navajo and Hoopa tribes.

Students learn casino management from the bottom up. Hunt, for instance, started by washing windows, an experience he called “humbling.”

“If you walk into a casino and see how clean it is, it’s because of us,” said student Nicola Larsen, 42, a tribal leader from Porterville, Calif. “We’ve done everything from spider webs to scraping gum.”

As a gaming commissioner for the Tule River Tribe, Larsen helped develop the new Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville.

Shawn Ray Tsosie, 19, a Navajo from New Mexico, took a break from cleaning hundreds of bingo chairs and pulled out a pen to record his experiences in a journal. All the students keep such journals.

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The Cache (sounds like “cash,” notes student Hunt) Creek casino, 40 miles northwest of Sacramento, draws more than 210,000 gamblers and nets $4.5 million each year. It is operated by the small Wintun Tribe on its Rumsey Rancheria reservation.

Although the casino is remote, busloads of gamblers find their way here to play bingo, video slot machines, poker and other games.

Since the casino opened in 1985, the Wintun people have pulled themselves off the welfare rolls and established an array of social programs.

Tribal Chairwoman Paula Lorenzo, 45, was a single mother on welfare before her tribe started the casino. But earlier this year she purchased a $300,000 building and invested $100,000 in its renovation as a restaurant.

All the Wintun tribal members, about 20 adults and 15 children, are self-sufficient now.

“What it gives our people at the Rumsey Rancheria is a purpose, and now we want to give that back to the other Native Americans who want to follow in our footsteps,” Lorenzo said.

Fauna Colbert, 20, of San Diego wants to join her tribal casino on the Yavapai-Apache reservation in Arizona, or stay in California and help open one on the Wintun-Maidu reservation.

“I’m not sure a lot of Indians have the qualifications to get in really high management positions,” Colbert said. “I just wanted to get my foot in the door.”

National statistics show that only 12% of Indian adults earn more than $7,000 a year. Unemployment averages about 55% among Indians, with some reservations about 97%.

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Indian casino revenues are just 7.5% of the $34 billion generated nationwide by gaming each year, but tribal leaders say it’s enough to improve the quality of life for Native Americans.

But some tribes have lost millions to consultants who bilked them out of profits. Other tribes pay large sums to casino management companies.

“I don’t know any culture that doesn’t want to control their own destiny,” said Glenn Siemons, who heads Cache Creek’s internship program. “The best way to control it is to know your source of revenue, whatever it is, and to know that business.”