The following is great news for Seminole Casino slot players in the fact they are being forced to go back to the patron vs. patron slots rather then the majority patron vs. the house slots.
This is great news!!
The U.S. government has warned the Seminole Tribe of Florida it will shut down its casinos unless the tribe stops using illegal gaming devices and ceases a free-wheeling spending program that pumped millions into luxury cars and gifts for council members' cronies.
National Indian Gaming Commission chairman Philip N. Hogen issued the dire warning earlier this month in a private meeting with the Seminole Tribe's elected council members in Washington, D.C.
Hogen and Seminole Tribal Chairman Mitchell Cypress met Wednesday at the Hollywood reservation to address the issues.
"We believe both parties were pleased with the outcome of the meeting and look forward to continue working with the NIGC on a government to government relationship," Cypress said in a statement.
The council, facing the loss of its economic lifeblood -- casinos bring in more than $300 million a year -- appears eager to do what Hogen requires.
Profits from the Seminole's casinos in Tampa, Hollywood, Immokalee, Coconut Creek and Brighton finance most of a tribal budget that exceeds $300 million a year and allows the payment of a $42,000-a-year dividend to every man, woman and child in the 3,000-member tribe.
But those profits could disappear unless tribal officials do two things: First, they must update some electronic slot machines so that patrons are playing against other patrons, not the house, as federal rules require. Second, and this hurdle is more critical, the tribe must overhaul a discretionary spending plan that allocated $5 million to $10 million annually to each council member to spend as he wished.
Spending excesses from those multimillion-dollar handouts made headlines in 2002 during a federal conspiracy, embezzlement and money-laundering trial in Fort Lauderdale involving three former employees of the Seminole Tribe.
Council member David Cypress testified at the federal trial that he blew through his $5 million allocations, asked for more and ended up spending $57 million in less than four years.
Cypress said he shelled out so much for Cadillacs and Lexuses for friends that he lost track of who got all the luxury cars. He said he poured $350,000 into a pal's boxing gym and paid $5.8million to another friend's business to landscape 32 homes on the Big Cypress reservation -- an average of $181,250 a home.
That kind of carte blanche spending violates federal rules on the use of gambling revenues, according to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act enacted in 1988.
That act says net revenues from tribal gaming must be used to finance tribal government operations, to provide for the "general welfare" of the tribe and its members, to promote economic development, to make donations to charity or to help fund other governmental agencies.
Hogen, a Sioux Indian and lawyer who served as the U.S. attorney in South Dakota for 10 years, has the authority to order temporary closure of gambling facilities and to levy and collect civil fines for failure to meet National Indian Gaming Commission rules.
"Closure is kind of a last resort enforcement tool," Hogen said. "Our object will be to get compliance through discussion with tribal leadership."
The tribe has already organized a task force to determine how best to reallocate the money previously handed council members for discretionary spending.
Joel Hirschhorn, a Coral Gables lawyer who represents Mitchell Cypress, said he thinks controversy over discretionary spending developed only after the Seminoles saw their successes in casino gambling "outstrip their ability to deal with it." The sit-down with Hogen helped galvanize a tribal effort to consider financial reform.
Already on the drawing board are options that include increasing the current $3,500-a-month dividend, curtailing arbitrary expenditures in areas such as travel and earmarking more for tribal education programs, Hirschhorn said.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this article.
This is great news!!
The U.S. government has warned the Seminole Tribe of Florida it will shut down its casinos unless the tribe stops using illegal gaming devices and ceases a free-wheeling spending program that pumped millions into luxury cars and gifts for council members' cronies.
National Indian Gaming Commission chairman Philip N. Hogen issued the dire warning earlier this month in a private meeting with the Seminole Tribe's elected council members in Washington, D.C.
Hogen and Seminole Tribal Chairman Mitchell Cypress met Wednesday at the Hollywood reservation to address the issues.
"We believe both parties were pleased with the outcome of the meeting and look forward to continue working with the NIGC on a government to government relationship," Cypress said in a statement.
The council, facing the loss of its economic lifeblood -- casinos bring in more than $300 million a year -- appears eager to do what Hogen requires.
Profits from the Seminole's casinos in Tampa, Hollywood, Immokalee, Coconut Creek and Brighton finance most of a tribal budget that exceeds $300 million a year and allows the payment of a $42,000-a-year dividend to every man, woman and child in the 3,000-member tribe.
But those profits could disappear unless tribal officials do two things: First, they must update some electronic slot machines so that patrons are playing against other patrons, not the house, as federal rules require. Second, and this hurdle is more critical, the tribe must overhaul a discretionary spending plan that allocated $5 million to $10 million annually to each council member to spend as he wished.
Spending excesses from those multimillion-dollar handouts made headlines in 2002 during a federal conspiracy, embezzlement and money-laundering trial in Fort Lauderdale involving three former employees of the Seminole Tribe.
Council member David Cypress testified at the federal trial that he blew through his $5 million allocations, asked for more and ended up spending $57 million in less than four years.
Cypress said he shelled out so much for Cadillacs and Lexuses for friends that he lost track of who got all the luxury cars. He said he poured $350,000 into a pal's boxing gym and paid $5.8million to another friend's business to landscape 32 homes on the Big Cypress reservation -- an average of $181,250 a home.
That kind of carte blanche spending violates federal rules on the use of gambling revenues, according to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act enacted in 1988.
That act says net revenues from tribal gaming must be used to finance tribal government operations, to provide for the "general welfare" of the tribe and its members, to promote economic development, to make donations to charity or to help fund other governmental agencies.
Hogen, a Sioux Indian and lawyer who served as the U.S. attorney in South Dakota for 10 years, has the authority to order temporary closure of gambling facilities and to levy and collect civil fines for failure to meet National Indian Gaming Commission rules.
"Closure is kind of a last resort enforcement tool," Hogen said. "Our object will be to get compliance through discussion with tribal leadership."
The tribe has already organized a task force to determine how best to reallocate the money previously handed council members for discretionary spending.
Joel Hirschhorn, a Coral Gables lawyer who represents Mitchell Cypress, said he thinks controversy over discretionary spending developed only after the Seminoles saw their successes in casino gambling "outstrip their ability to deal with it." The sit-down with Hogen helped galvanize a tribal effort to consider financial reform.
Already on the drawing board are options that include increasing the current $3,500-a-month dividend, curtailing arbitrary expenditures in areas such as travel and earmarking more for tribal education programs, Hirschhorn said.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this article.
