"Life here, as remote as we are, was always hard…But today I think we have everything we need."
One of the most important, and least visible, benefits of Tribal gaming is what it allows Tribal communities to do for their elders.
"Tribal gaming provided me an opportunity to remain and thrive here with my family, my people, and my community in San Carlos."
Christabelle’s story epitomizes the positive impact that Tribal gaming brings to Indian communities across Arizona. While today she serves as the General Manager to the Tribe’s flagship Apache Gold Casino Resort, her success was far from assured as she grew up in the community.
Reservation economies are often constrained when it comes to meeting the demand for goods and services within their boundaries. Such economies are often poor, small, undiversified, or all of the above. This means that Tribal gaming, the governments it funds, and the non-gaming businesses it capitalizes
must turn to the off-reservation Arizona economy for labor, goods, and services. Detailed purchasing data from Washington state indicates that the preponderance of Tribal purchasing (on the order of 94%) is from off-reservation vendors. Employment data from sixty-three Tribal entities in thirteen Arizona Tribes —casinos, non-gaming businesses, and
government agencies— indicates that about half (53%) of the Tribal workforce in 2014 was non-Indian. Among the government entities, the percentage is lower: 36% of employees are non-Indian in this sample. But in Tribal Gaming enterprises, 67% of employees in 2014 were non-Indian.