| 'The Tables Have Turned' Some Give Tribal Casinos Credit For Easing Stigma Of Gambling November 12, 2006 By Chet Barfield STAFF WRITER • Courtesy of SignOnSanDiego.com Photo by Dan Trevan  Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Victor Nuñez knew of only three gambling venues, all frowned upon: the Hollywood Park racetrack, the Las Vegas Strip and the neighborhood bookie.Now he's in National City running a nonprofit youth athletic program, and guilt-free gambling is all around. The state lottery. Commercial card rooms. Sports and Internet wagering. Televised poker tournaments. But Nuñez thinks it is Indian gaming, more than anything else, that's neutralizing the social stigma of gambling, in large part because of tribes' support for organizations such as his Community Youth Athletic Center. “Before, everybody saw gambling as negative, as addicting, and the gambling enterprises just took care of their own,” he said. “Now the tables have turned and (tribes) have gotten a piece of the pie. They have not just kept it to themselves; they're out there sharing.” Pollsters, scholars and industry experts agree that public acceptance of gambling in the United States has grown over the decades. And many agree with Nuñez that in a region such as San Diego County, with eight highly visible tribal casinos, Indian gaming is a major force pushing the legitimization of gambling. “You can't go out to an event in San Diego without running into one of the Indian logos on the wall,” said Gordon Clanton, a San Diego State University sociologist. National opinion surveys on gambling have recorded approval ratings of 60 percent to 65 percent since the late 1990s, said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. That's a 180-degree shift from 1951, when Gallup found only 38 percent approval. Currently, “around a third of Americans think it's immoral or wrong, and the other two-thirds think it's morally OK or not a moral issue at all,” Harvard University public health professor John Benson, a specialist on gambling issues, said of surveys for the past 10 years. Attitudes have changed as legal gambling has become more common. Californians have been able to wager on horse races since the 1930s. Commercial card rooms had been around for more than a decade before the state began regulating them in 1984. The government has run and promoted a statewide lottery since 1984. Indian gaming's roots also extend back to the early '80s, when California tribes began offering high-stakes bingo games. By the 1990s, tribes had begun adding video gambling machines, which the state considered illegal. Political and legal battles continued until 2000, when the state's voters legalized Nevada-style slots and casino gambling on Indian reservations. Winning Allies The regional casinos draw huge numbers of patrons – up to 10,000 a day at the biggest ones. Those customers come from all racial and economic groups, and from all over the county and beyond. Pollster John Nienstedt of Competitive Edge Research in San Diego noted that more than 60 percent of county residents in a recent poll said they'd been to an Indian casino. The eight local casinos employ 13,000 workers and spend tens of millions of dollars a month buying supplies from local vendors, an estimate based on figures the large local casinos have shared in the past. Sycuan Chairman Danny Tucker said his tribe realized early on that investing in the community not only made business sense, but also won allies in larger issues of tribal government recognition. “It was a PR program that we had to do in order to let people know that if you give to us, we're going to give back to you,” he said. The gaming tribes spend millions more on advertising and on cultivating goodwill with sponsorships and charity donations – all branches of the outreach tree. Ad campaigns, such as the ubiquitous “Minutes away, miles apart” and “Viva, Viejas” commercials, invite customers directly. Donations, such as Barona's recent $1 million gift to Sharp Grossmont Hospital, are intended to benefit an entire community. Last month, as corporate sponsors, Viejas provided money for an Asian film festival, Pala contributed to a medical awards banquet and Sycuan supported a symphony black-tie gala, helping civic institutions while increasing the tribes' stature and visibility. These efforts to gain public support – and the political clout that goes with it – laid the groundwork for ballot measures in 1998 and 2000 that launched California's Indian casino boom. They were part of a strategy tribes mastered in the years they wrangled with the state over the types of gambling allowed on reservations. Sycuan's Tucker thinks back to the mid-1980s, when his El Cajon-area tribe had only a bingo hall and gave its first donation of $500 or $600 to a local Little League. Then he recalls what it felt like a decade later to be sitting at a front table of a charity banquet as a five-figure benefactor. Looking around the room, he heard the name of his tribe being read from the podium. “I thought, 'My god, here we are,' ” Tucker said. “I think that's when it hit me the most. People respect us.” The tribes have used the profits from gambling to make their members economically secure, to support political candidates and to develop resorts and shopping centers. They've branched into other types of business, such as banks, radio stations and professional boxing. Viejas co-owns a hotel in Washington, D.C., and is a partner in one under construction in Sacramento. Sycuan just reopened the venerable U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego after spending $97 million to buy and renovate it. Pollster Nienstedt said the tribes have cultivated a generally positive image through associations with local organizations big and small. Morgan Rogers of Valley Center can attest to that. His Valley Center Lacrosse Foundation, supporting girls teams, needed help this year, and San Pasqual's Valley View Casino stepped up as its main sponsor with a $1,000 donation. “When (Indian gaming) started out, people were a little wary of it,” Rogers said. “They knew it would help out the Indian tribes, but at the same time they were worried about what that brings to the community – people coming from outside, the traffic and all that. “There's still traffic problems and that sort of thing, but their helping the community makes up for that quite a bit.” Changing Attitudes One who both marvels at and worries about the growing acceptance of gambling is Elizabeth Graupner Pike, who runs a treatment center in Vista for problem gamblers. Although the percentage of gamblers who get in over their heads has remained consistent and relatively small – about 5 percent – the actual numbers have grown in proportion to the spread of the casino industry, Pike said. About 95 percent of the more than 500 addicts that her center has treated since it opened in 2003 gambled in Indian casinos.  Pike is aware of how Indian gaming, with its wide reach, is changing public attitudes. Even people who don't gamble see the Sycuan signs when the Chargers play at Qualcomm Stadium. They see Viejas' logo at bayside jazz concerts. They might even go to the buffet or a lounge show at Harrah's Rincon, walking right past the slot machines and blackjack tables to enjoy the casino's night life.While gambling still has its detractors – some object on moral grounds; even more think it's a stupid waste of money – Pike sees the tribal casinos becoming as innocuous to most San Diegans as a night at the movies. “The Indian casinos sell gambling as fun, as recreation. I think they've done a magnificent job of being able to advertise it as such,” she said. “There just happens to be a certain segment of our population that's very vulnerable. It stops being fun and becomes addictive.” Also troubled about the spread of gambling – but conflicted about it – is Dolores Montier, 53, who with her husband owns a Christian book store in Ramona. The evangelical church they belong to considers gambling a sin, declining even to raise money with a raffle. Montier sees destitute people buying lottery tickets at the 7-Eleven. She feels sorry for gamblers losing more than they can afford at the casinos. She worries that tribes' growing wealth, for all the good it can do, may be undermining tribal members' spirituality or work ethic. Despite those concerns, Montier and her husband occasionally treat themselves to a buffet meal at Barona. Before leaving, they usually drop a couple of twenties in the slots. “We think it's a poor use of money . . . but we think it's fun,” she said. “I tell everybody that God won't let me win.”
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