The casino’s popularity has remained steady, earning $155 million in annual payouts in 2004, which provided $6,000-dollar annual bonuses to every member of the tribe.īarrett, Mark. As the day went on, the crowds grew so large that casino officials made a public appeal for people to stay away. On opening day, the casino’s first visitors waited in line outside, in steady rain, for hours just to get inside of the casino. As part of the agreement, one half of the casino earnings were to be divided among all members of the tribe, distributed as an annual bonus. Alcohol would also be prohibited in the casino, in accordance with existing reservation laws. Table games, or games featuring live dealers, were prohibited. Worried that such a limited offering would not draw the crowds they hoped to see, tribal leaders continued negotiations with Governor Hunt, and finally arrived at an agreement under which the casino would be able to offer electronic games that required “skill or dexterity” and with a maximum jackpot of $25,000. Attorney, who argued that the tribe was offering a form of gambling that was not legal elsewhere in the state, the casino was forced to remove everything but bingo. In the early 1990s, the tribe opened a small casino that offered electronic versions of bingo and poker, as well as pull-tab machines that offered cash prizes. Residents of the surrounding area were also concerned about the type of visitors that a casino would draw, and feared that the presence of a large group of gamblers would discourage the “tried and true” family vacationers who had been coming to the area for decades. Some Cherokee leaders were not enthusiastic about the idea, most notably the tribe’s spiritual leader, Walker Calhoun, who said in 1995 that gambling would be the Cherokee’s damnation. Tribal Chief Jonathan “Ed” Taylor worked closely with Governor Jim Hunt to develop a plan for a casino that would meet state laws and satisfy local and tribal concerns. This opened the door for the Cherokee to build a casino in western North Carolina. Congress passed the Indian Gambling Regulatory Act, which allowed federally-recognized tribes to open casinos on tribal property, but limited the casino offerings to games that were already allowed under state law. The opening was the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of negotiation and compromise between tribal, state, and federal officials. On November 13, 1997, the first major casino in North Carolina opened on the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the western part of the state.

Detail from a brochure in the North Carolina Collection Swain County Ephemera Collection.

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