Abstract
ABSTRACT Congress authorized states to negotiate with Native American tribes to establish tribal gaming facilities. The lopsided support in Congress indicated broad agreement that the primary purpose was to promote tribal economic development, yet substantial opposition was manifested in state referenda designed to legalize tribal gaming. What county-level factors explain the level of opposition to tribal gaming? Was it driven by racism, or moral objections to gambling? County-level votes in all 12 referenda to legalize tribal gaming were subjected to multiple regression analysis to evaluate Economic, Morality, and Racial Hypotheses. Those results most strongly support racial animus as the driver of negative votes, though opposition was also based in counties with larger Protestant populations. Votes in favor of tribal gaming were cast in counties with more poverty and more Indian land, the context that most precisely supports the Economic Hypothesis.
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