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Navajo Sign Over Some Slot Machine Rights

The Navajo Nation has signed over a parcel of its allotted slot machines to a trio of other Indian tribal nations that will have more use for the devices than they do currently. The Indian tribe had, like other native communities, forged a pact with the state of Arizona to attain the rights to maintain slot machines under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This week, however, the Navajos officially leased out over one third of the slot games that had been allocated to them by the state – because they lack any place to install the machines.

On Monday, tribal authorities signed pacts with the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nathan for one hundred eighty machines; with the Gila River Indian Community for four hundred eleven machines; and with the Tohono O’odham Nation for four hundred eighty-nine machines. The Navajo tribe will keep seventeen hundred seventy slots for their own use. It is expected that the Navajo will earn approximately one hundred forty million dollars over the seventeen years of the leases.

The Navajo aren’t opening their first casino until November, when their gambling establishment in New Mexico will open. Therefore, the tribe has little use for all the slot games that it is legally permitted by law in Arizona, where it has no casinos. The IGRA permits Indian tribes to lease out the rights to their slot machines if they so wish.

The tribes paid the Navajo a collective down payment of seven-point-four million dollars on Monday during a signing ceremony that brought the four communities together.

Back to September 2008 Archive.