Time Magazine Editorial Staff Via Facsimile:  (212) 522-8949   December 13, 2002   To The Editors:   As President of the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest and largest organization of tribal governments in the country, and Chairman of the Mandan, Arikara, & Hidatsa Nation, a large tribe in northwestern North Dakota, I was deeply concerned by Time Magazine’s misleading feature on Indian Casinos.  Your article on tribal government gaming fueled a number of incorrect stereotypes about the nature of tribal governments, and failed to look at the larger picture that makes Indian gaming a critical source of economic development in Indian country.   My tribe’s casino, very modest by Las Vegas standards, provides jobs to our people that are extraordinarily important to our economy, and revenue that our tribal government uses to provide services to the 10,000 members of our tribe.  This is the case for the majority of tribes with gaming ventures.    Tribal government gaming is certainly not a failed federal program as your article suggests.  Tribal government sponsored gaming enterprises are tribal economic ventures undertaken to support critical governmental functions, closely comparable to state lotteries—which also are not taxed.  Tribes use their gaming revenues to fund essential governmental functions, such as law enforcement, education, and health care, and any revenues distributed to individual members are taxed at the regular federal rates.  Tribes also provide approximately $600 million annually to states through tribal-state agreements—much more than would be generated by state taxation of tribal gaming.    It is true that the success a small handful of tribes have experienced does not translate to economic success for all Indian people—just as the New York State Lottery has no impact on the economic status of families in Mississippi.  Those tribes with successful gaming ventures benefit from their investments, and while most are extremely generous in their philanthropy throughout Indian Country as well as in their neighboring communities, they certainly cannot be expected to solve the deep economic problems borne of hundreds of years of failure by the U.S. government to meet its treaty and trust commitments to tribes.    A small handful of early investors in Indian gaming who put up a great deal of capital in the face of major risks are now reaping significant rewards.   Time Magazine’s criticism of the success of these investors is puzzling—should all investors in start-up ventures be chastised when their investments pay off?  Outside investment was virtually the only way to fund tribal gaming development in the early 1990’s.  These investors reaped the benefits of stepping into that niche.  Today, more tribes are able to access financing in traditional capital markets and are taking over direct management of their gaming operations—enabling them to keep more of the revenues in their communities.      Indian gaming has provided one very important mechanism for providing jobs and economic activity in a number of tribal communities where no other option has been available to address the extreme conditions of poverty and unemployment that exist.  Your short article on the Prairie Band of Potawatomi and their success is much more representative of the norm in Indian country than the atypical cases your main story highlights.  There are many important stories ripe to be told about challenges faced by tribes in the U.S. today—it is disappointing that Time would instead choose to make news of such a misleading and sensationalized attack on one of the rare successes tribal economies have experienced over the past 250 years.    Sincerely,     Tex G. Hall President, National Congress of American Indians