GGB: NIGC takes on gentler tone during Obama administration

Friday, September 30, 2011  

"The relationship between every regulated industry and its regulator is usually adversarial. Whether it’s the stock market and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the broadcasting industry and the Federal Communications Commission or the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration, there is always a healthy tension between the parties.

So maybe it wasn’t unusual that the relationship between the tribal government gaming industry and the National Indian Gaming Commission had gotten a bit testy during the final years of the Bush administration. Then-Chairman Phil Hogen had insisted on establishing a “bright line” between Class II and Class III gaming machines, and his consultations with tribes on that definition got fairly contentious at times. But Hogen worked in an administration that was, by some accounts, hostile to Indian Country, and he claimed his policies were driven by a need to protect tribal casinos by making Justice Department intervention and prosecution unnecessary.

But since the advent of the Obama administration, with its overtly friendly relationship with Indian Country, the new National Indian Gaming Commission is more understanding about the relationship between the regulated and the regulators.

During the year that the current commission has been confirmed, members of the NIGC have traveled the country to meet with gaming—and non-gaming—tribes in an effort to understand how the NIGC can regulate such a diverse and far-flung industry.

Tracie Stevens, the chairwoman of the commission, explains that she and the other members agreed on four core goals even before taking office.

“We were very clear about what we wanted to do during our terms,” she says, “and we came to those conclusions together, and we’ve been working feverishly to move the ball down the field on every one of those fronts: consultation and relationship building, technical assistance and training, regulatory review and agency operations. It doesn’t sound like much—just four things to do—but they are really big things, very all-encompassing.”"

Get the Story:
Kinder & Gentler (Global Gaming Magazine October 2011)