Plans to expand casino sites put two tribes at odds

Wisconsin neighbors battle for area’s gambling revenue

BOWLER, Wis. — Two American Indian tribes are going head-to-head in a battle over casino expansion in northern Wisconsin.

The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans’ northern Wisconsin reservation depends on its North Star casino. Another tribe, the HoChunk Nation, is expanding its nearby casino into a fullfledged resort, threatening the Stockbridge-Munsee’s gambling revenue.

According to the National Indian Gambling Commission, 240 tribes offered gambling in 28 states as of January. With casinos restricted to reservations and land held in federal trust, tribes have been left to beef up their existing facilities to grow revenue rather than expand into new territories. That means more tribes have found themselves in direct competition with their neighbors, said Steve Light, co-director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gambling Law and Policy at the University of North Dakota.

Intertribal disputes over casinos have happened in California, Connecticut and Michigan in the past five years. Just two years ago, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker refused to give the Menominee Nation permission to build a second casino on trust land in Kenosha after the Potawatomi and HoChunk complained about competition — just as the Stockbridge-Munsee are now.

About a third of the 1,400 members of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe live on a swampy, rural reservation in Shawano County, about 50 miles west of Green Bay. The tribe is facing long odds against the more powerful 7,000-member Ho-Chunk Nation, which has no true reservation but does have six Wisconsin casinos, office supply distribution centers, gas stations, an RV park and a theater.

About 21 percent of the Stockbridge-Munsee in Shawano County lived below the poverty line in 2015, and a drive through the reservation reveals aging, isolated homes linked by two-lane roads.

The tribe runs a banquet hall, a golf course, an RV park and a gas station but depends almost entirely on revenue from its North Star casino. The money funds tribal health care and elder centers, elder chore assistants and the reservation’s police and fire departments. The money also has paid for body cameras for county sheriff deputies, a police liaison officer and tutors in Shawano County schools and workers who help the county with road repairs, tribal President Shannon Holsey said.

But the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe has always struggled

The Stockbridge-Munsee have filed a federal lawsuit alleging the expansion violates the HoChunk’s gambling compact with the state, arguing the compact doesn’t allow for such an extensive expansion.

with location. The reservation is about 10 miles from U.S. 29, the main thoroughfare that crosses the state. Gamblers have to travel winding two-lane roads through a bog to reach the North Star.

The Ho-Chunk, meanwhile, have run a casino just off U.S. 29, about 17 miles west of the North Star, since 2008. Last year, the tribe began work to add hundreds more slot machines, a hotel and a restaurant to the site.

The Stockbridge-Munsee estimate the expansion will cost them $22 million in lost gambling revenue as players choose the Ho-Chunk facility over the North Star. That could lead to job cuts and severely curtailed tribal services, the band’s leaders say.

The Stockbridge-Munsee have filed a federal lawsuit alleging the expansion violates the Ho-Chunk’s gambling compact with the state, arguing the compact doesn’t allow for such an extensive expansion. They also contend that Walker has breached the Stockbridge-Munsee’s own compact, which calls for the state to protect the tribe from competition. And they dispute that the Ho-Chunk land was properly taken into trust to allow gambling in the first place.

“We’re not just going to roll over,” Holsey said. “This is our home.”

Walker administration officials wrote to the Stockbridge in January that they were satisfied that the HoChunk expansion was legal, citing a 2003 amendment to the Ho-Chunk compact and an earlier Bureau of Indian Affairs determination on the trust issue.

Ho-Chunk leaders called the lawsuit’s arguments frivolous, weak and trivial.

“The only issue here is dealing with competition,” Ho-Chunk spokesman Collin Price said in a telephone interview. “The tribes own businesses. These businesses provide resources and programs for tribal members. That’s why it’s so important to protect them and try to offer more.”