Personally I feel that without state regulation to govern Native American
Casinos they are ripe for corruption and possibly influence by the mob who
would love to exploit any opportunity by naive casino owners. There was
recently an article in Time magazine about these casinos from the viewpoint
that in some instances many tribe members benefit, but in others some members
are excluded from the profits, and some tribes have had
corruption and infighting inside the tribes. The article didn't deal with
the inherent problems of casinos that don't have any oversight from a
government agency.
While I have no actual information on corruption or "cheating" or "unfair
machines," it just seems logical that some of this MAY be occurring. It is
just like internet gambling, without oversight, how do you KNOW that the
internet casinos are solvent, will pay all bets, are dealing fairly, are
truthful in their advertisements?
Gambling in many parts of the U.S.A. was unregulated for many years, and the
result was a lot of corruption and mob influence. Now with government
regulation, big business has taken over, and we can be pretty much assured of
truth in advertising (at least usually), fair dealing of table games, and no
skimming of profits. Regulated casinos have no incentive to be anything
except fair - they know the will rake in profits just be the "true" odds of
their games. They actually have an incentive in prohibiting cheating both by
players and by corrupt dealers.
Without regulation, there is more of an incentive for both the casinos (or
whoever is running them) and for dealers to cheat. Where there is cash
flowing in great quantities without regulation, some corruption is bound to
follow. It could well be that in some instances the Native American tribes
are also being cheated by whoever they hire to run their casinos, unless they
have very strict oversight of what is going on. (I have no data to go on
this, but it could happen).
So it would seem to be that a gambler who can choose where to gamble in
general would be better off to play at casinos where he knows there is
government oversight and regulation, and to avoid places which might not be
quite as stringent in their honesty. Such places might include Native
American casinos, cruise ships, internet casinos, and some states where
casinos are poorly regulated.
However if you want to play in these less regulated venues and have fun, go
ahead, but just be aware that your results may be unexpectedly "gaffed" in
some way. Also, should a dispute arise, you may have no legal recourse (as
has been the case with some internet casinos who didn't pay jackpots, and
with some Native American tribes who have sometimes used their "soverign
nation" status to avoid lawsuits/payments [I'm not talking about gaming here
- I'm talking about other activities, such as a person doing work for a tribe
who might have a dispute about payment - he can't sue in a state "small
claims court" or similar, and may have a difficult time finding redress -
their have been some instances of this happening.].
Make your choice of where to play just as knowledgeable as your choice of
what to play (like which paytable is good).
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