Indian leader blasts Wilhelm, gaming panel in general

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A confrontation over tribal gambling occurred today between an Indian leader and a member of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.

Rick Hill, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association, which represents 168 gambling tribes, submitted written testimony that objected to the participation on the nine-member panel of Commissioner John Wilhelm, president of the international Culinary Union.

Hill wrote that Wilhelm was on the opposite side of a legal battle over the passage of California's Proposition 5, which paved the way for the spread of Las Vegas-style casinos in that state.

In his appearance this morning, Hill also was critical of the full commission, suggesting his organization "has lost a great deal of hope" that the federal panel will be fair to the tribes.

He said his group didn't trust the commission with sensitive information about how the tribes spend their gambling revenues.

Hill said the tribes believe the commission could end up using that information against them.

Following his presentation, Wilhelm chided Hill for attacking him in his written remarks.

Wilhelm said he was appointed to represent the rights of the gambling industry's workers and intended to "do his job."

He criticized the tribes for not affording casino workers on reservations the same kind of wages, benefits and job security given to employees in commercial casinos.

Wilhelm said he "made no apologies" for looking after the interests of the workers and had no intention of stepping aside to please Hill.

Earlier, Hill criticized the states for negotiating compacts in some cases that give them part of a tribe's gambling profits.

"If organized crime were to come to a tribe and say, 'Give me a percentage or I won't let you run your business,' it would be called extortion" Hill said. "When a state governor does the same thing, the state calls it negotiation."

Hill said forcing tribes to pay a state anything other than "reasonable regulatory costs" is regarded by his association as an "impermissible payoff."

Hill also criticized those who want to shut down all gaming operations with the claim that they are immoral.

"We respond that poverty is immoral," Hill said. "Hunger is immoral. Homelessness is immoral. Disease is immoral.

"For Indian nations, gaming is a means to end the immoralities heaped upon us throughout the history of the United States."

On Monday, the commission struggled to deal with the spread of lotteries and their impact on Americans.

Duke University professor Charles Clotfelter disclosed the results of a study he did for the commission that showed lottery sales across the nation rising from $2 billion in 1973 to $34 billion in 1997.

More than half of the adult population in the country has played a lottery, Clotfelter said. There now are lotteries in 37 states plus Washington D.C.

Clotfelter's study found that white males between ages 30 and 44 are the most likely to buy a lottery ticket.

Questions were raised by the commissioners about the propriety of allowing states to regulate themselves in the lottery business.

But no one was able to recommend how to overcome that concern.

Wilhelm has suggested putting lotteries under the jurisdiction of a new federal superagency that also would regulate Indian gambling.

But his proposal is not expected to draw much support. Many of the commissioners believe control over lotteries should stay with the states.

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