Wampum: How Indian Tribes, the Mafia, and an Inattentive Congress Invented Indian Casino Gaming and Created a $28 Billion Gambling Empire

Description

In 2012, 240 Indian tribes operated 435 casinos, high stakes bingo halls, and other gambling facilities in 28 states. They collectively had an annual gross gaming revenue of $27.9 billion.But how did Indian Casinos become such a fixture of the American landscape? It was a mixture of an unlikely partnership between Indian Tribes and the Mafia, newly enacted federal laws, and the seductiveness of slot machines and blackjack tables. The story begins in 1979 and involves profit skimming, organized crime, and plots to bamboozle big city mayors. From those shady beginnings, the multi-billion dollar gambling empire we know today was born. Donald Mitchell s Wampum relates, in accessible prose, the tale of how the Mafia invented Indian bingo and replicated the model on Indian reservations nationwide, how Congress s enactment of a bill unwittingly produced hundreds of Las Vegas-style casinos, and how that same bill has wrought slot machines, fake tribes, and fake reservations across the United States. It is also the first book of its kind to attempt to explain how the story of the injustices the federal government inflicted on Native Americans was used to transform America by institutionalizing gambling.”