MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut for 3 months in 2020, its homeowners, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, needed to reckon with a long time of relying closely on playing because the tribe’s primary income.
“The fact that the casino revenues went from millions to zero overnight just fully reiterated the need for diverse revenue streams,” mentioned Tribal Chairman Rodney Butler.
The 1,000-member tribe has since expanded its efforts to get into the federal authorities contracting enterprise, making it one in every of a number of tribal nations to look past the on line casino enterprise extra critically after the coronavirus disaster. Tribal leaders and tribal enterprise consultants say the worldwide pandemic has been the newest and clearest signal that tribal governments with casinos can’t rely solely on slot machines and poker rooms to help future generations.
In Michigan, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, or Gun Lake Tribe, not too long ago introduced a 25-year plan to develop lots of of acres close to its on line casino right into a hall with housing, retail, manufacturing and a brand new 15-story lodge.
Tribes, with and with out casinos, have gotten concerned in a variety of non-gambling companies, akin to trucking, building, consulting, well being care, actual property, hashish and advertising and marketing over the previous decade or longer whereas others have been branching out extra not too long ago.
“While enterprise diversification can come with costs, its necessity became clear during the early phases of the pandemic, when tribally owned casinos were shut down to mitigate COVID-19 transmission and gaming-dependent tribes were left with little incoming revenue,” in response to a brand new report from the Center for Indian Country Development on the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
The report discovered that many tribes are more and more doing enterprise with the federal authorities, particularly the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Mashantucket Pequots’ non-gambling entity, Command Holdings, final 12 months made its largest acquisition so far: WWC Global, a Florida-based administration consulting agency that predominantly works with federal companies, together with the protection and state departments. WWC introduced in December that it had been awarded a $37.5 million contract supporting the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Butler mentioned the tribe hopes non-gambling revenues, together with from a deliberate household resort with a 91,000-square-foot water park that’s anticipated to open in 2025, will ultimately comprise 50% to 80% of the Mashantucket Pequots’ portfolio, offering “stability and certainty” when one other difficult occasion undoubtedly will occur.
“You think about the financial crisis in ’08 and now COVID. And so, something’s going to happen again,” Butler mentioned. “We’ve learned from past mistakes, and we want to be ready for it in the future.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”