Southern California is inundated with Indian casinos. When the idea of building casinos on Indian reservations came up in the California legislature it would have been soundly defeated except for the fact that the Indian tribes contributed millions of dollars in donations to the Governors' race, as well as to the various Senate races in the state. The Indian's land was sovereign and so couldn't be regulated by any state agency, including any gaming commission that the state wanted to set up. That was fine with them, like weapons inspectors in Iraq, they could walk into the casinos all they wanted, but they couldn't open the books, open the machines or even check the decks of cards or balance of the dice even if they wanted to. The Indians promised there would be no hanky-panky, that they would run their casinos just like the Nevada casinos; in fact, since most of their start-up money was coming from the Nevada casinos anyway, they would just have their "investors" check their operations. That's like sending the fox to the chicken shed to count the chickens. When it came time to do any checking, the Indians had their Jewish lawyers claim sovereignty and it was a done deal. The books could be cooked and no one was allowed in the kitchen to even see what the hell they were putting in the food. When it came time to "license" the Indians, the only agency in the state of California that licensed any gaming at all was the state lottery agency. Well, the Indians just claimed sovereignty and insisted the licensing be done in the name of the tribal chiefs who had nothing at all to do with the casinos. They just didn't want their own names on the licenses, in case the FBI did get involved in who was running what. So Chief Sitting Cloud "owns" and "runs" the Pachanga Indian Casino in San Diego County, but Joey Zito and Angelo Cerretti are the guys that pick up the "take" every week and fly it back east with a brief stop-over in Las Vegas to drop off their shares. There's literally no government agency, IRS included, that can walk on to sovereign Indian property and open their books, or check who's walking into the cages with the suitcases. The Indians just claim they have a treaty with the United States and their reservation is like an independent country and unless the government decides to break another treaty with the Indians and bring the cavalry in, they'd better just drop any ideas of checking up on their operation.

A study done last week was set up on I-15 between Riverside and Las Vegas to check the flow of traffic coming into the state from Southern California. Just three years ago, the time of the last study, the traffic flow into Nevada was down almost 20%, which translates into almost 3 million cars. Put two or three people in each car and that's a lot of people. That was mostly due to the building of the Indian casinos.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the cashier cage: people weren't showing up, at all. The reason was that no one was winning. Sure they'd win on the tables, but table wins are much smaller than slot wins. Most slot winners, people that hit for $300 or more, usually cash out. They may buy back in but they usually make it to the cage or at least take the cash at the machines. That's also the reason the ticket-in; ticket-out machines are unpopular, because people really do like filling those buckets with all 'dem coins. The heavier the buckets, the better they like it. Well as it turns out, the traffic study found that not only had the three million cars come back to Nevada, but also another 1.8 million joined them.

This means the Indian's scheme of setting low paybacks on their machines thinking that no one would notice, and the state couldn't come and check their R.G. chips. (Random Generator chips. These are the chips placed in the machines in Nevada by state gaming regulators to assure the machines have the legal payback limit set into them). In ALL Indian casinos, the R.G. chips are put in by their own mechanics and no one can check them. A lawsuit was brought to the courts in Wisconsin claiming the video poker machines were purposely set to not deal a Royal Flush. But the state wouldn't let the suit come to court because all Indian reservations are sovereign land and can't be taken to court, local or Federal.

Hard to believe anyone would do such a thing to their customers until you recall the story of American Coin Company here in Las Vegas that owned video poker machines in local bars that were found to have a special R.G. chip that for some strange reason, didn't have a Royal Flush programmed into it. Even if you had 4 cards to the Royal, it was impossible to draw the fifth card. They were put out of business immediately and made to pay the lawsuit. At the Indian casinos, when the state gaming commission showed up at the front door to check the machines, they were given free key rings and comps to the buffet, but nothing more. When they went to Chief No Change to answer for the casinos refusal to be overseen, he did a rain dance and threw them both an umbrella and a dream catcher (that was made in China), and said in his best Klinket "mita wanta getta liffa somewheres elsa."

They also decided they wanted to make more money off the tables so they started the practice of charging a fee to play. Usually $1 per hand in blackjack. People didn't like that idea either, realizing it was costing them as much as $50 an hour just to sit, and they made them pay for their drinks at the tables also, using the excuse they didn't want to promote alcohol abuse, but when they saw how much that was costing them, they quickly dispensed with that practice and began serving free drinks. Most of them also rescinded the $1 per hand charge, but it was too late. Between the tight machines, overpriced tables and no alcohol, plus the fact that the Indians built the casinos, but didn't build rooms, forcing people to have to drive home after drinking and gambling all day, (take into account that most of the Indian reservations are miles away from any large towns), so people would bail out by night time, not wanting to drive through the dark canyons in the back hills of San Diego and Riverside Counties. Now they're opting to drive up the well-driven I-15 to Las Vegas, get a room for the weekend so they can feel they're on a mini-vacation in Vegas instead of a long night fighting the Indians.

So I guess Las Vegas will once again weather the storms. You can throw recessions, gas shortages and 9-11 at us. You can throw in the mob or throw out the mob, send in the IRS or FBI, you can set up a nuclear waste facility 90 miles away, right next to where you keep the flying saucers and dead aliens because we don't give a shit. WE'RE VEGAS BABY, WE AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE!

-Ken Pearlman