Just a little background.

The White Earth tribe i s the largest or second largest in Minnesota, with a presence up north on its reservation and a large presence in the poor parts of the metro. Maybe 40,000 members total? Most importantly they don't currently have a casino because their reservation is in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile some small tribes with only a few hundred members who happen to have land near the metro make flipping great wadges of cash.

These leaves White Earth poor and dependent on the charity of these rich few (The tribe that owns the biggest casino in the state has under 500 members).

White Earth are constantly proposing different ideas to get a casino for obvious reasons, though their ability to pull it off is a little suspect as they are always having all these grand schemes and often very little comes of them.

Anyway a casino in town is a bad idea, just hurts the poor people we already spend huge amounts of money subsidizing. I don't want to have to pay Earned Income Tax Credit to Bobby, and pay for his housing when he wastes all his money gambling, and pay for his crimes/arrest/jail time when he commits crimes due to his gambling.

I'm pretty rabidly anti publicly funded stadium, but with some tweaking this plan may have potential. Instead of a state/tribe partnership, make it a Vikings/tribe partnership. The revenue from the casino pays for the stadium and split up among the rest of the tribes in Minnesota. When the stadium is paid off, the tribes get to split the rest of the revenue.

That takes away the state being on the hook if the casino fails, generates some tax income that can support other activities, helps out all the tribes in the state, and... well, no tax dollars spent. It has a lot of potential with some minor tweaking. Of course, if you split the revenue up among all the tribes, the White Earth band would probably no longer be as interested. But hey, part of a casino is still better for them than no casino at all.

Is there a lot of excess demand for gambling floating around, though? If a new casino would only siphon off customers from existing casinos, that's not going to be too tempting to the tribes as a whole.

Ah but the tribes aren't a whole. They are a whole when it makes sense, but they are also extremely competitive and cutthroat when that makes sense.

And there is A LOT of resentment among the White Earth about the current casino situation even though they do get payoffs from the more lucky tribes.

There would be an increase in gambling if you could do it right in town. Right now the nearest casinos are out in the exurbs where the intercity poor have a hard time getting to them.

Hard to say how much of the new business would just be cannibalized from the existing casinos, definitely a lot of it would be, but I bet there would be more overall traffic due to convenience for lower-middle class people and accessibility to lower class people.

The middle class sand upper class people will still leave town to gamble because in town casinos always end up grungy and filled with undesirables.

No, there wouldn't be additional gambling (or if so, a tiny amount since the location alone might cause a couple of people to play a slot or two. But minimal...). That's why I'd prefer for the downtown casino to share its profits state-wide instead of just with the WE tribe.

That's why I'd be more in favor if there were tweaks, but I feel like they are on the right path. There would be some additional tax revenue from the profits currently generated (most are not taxed). I'd also support expanding the gambling available at the existing casinos to help them compete with the new one, such as allowing craps and roulette (currently only BJ and slots). Their plan has potential, but still needs a few tweaks.

If there wouldn't be additional gambling, why would any of the tribes that currently operate casinos want to go for this? "Hey, how about helping to build a new casino that will take your existing revenues and share part of them with White Earth and the Vikings? Hello? Hello?"

It would be a tough sell. But their members would benefit from the new casino (revenue shared state-wide), their existing casinos would still have things to bring people there (expanded gambling), and it could help take some of the political pressure off that they are currently under from not paying taxes. They've already signaled some compromise by not fighting against the electronic pulltab proposal, so maybe they are willing to talk.

As currently proposed, they have no interest and have already said as much.

Wilf wouldn't let St. Paul sell naming rights on pieces of asphalt. Don't you think he'd want a piece of the casino action? He is a real estate developer after all. With the way the Vikings have played this whole stadium issue, I wouldn't doubt he'd nix this just because he isn't the one building the casino. But Geoff has this absolutely correct, the Viking should partner with White Earth and leave Minnesota out of this.

The Tribe needs the state because last time I checked you couldn't just slap up casinos in the middle of town even if you were a Native. The state needs to give you the land.