American Indian Casino Operations and Adjacent Firm Long-Run Employment and Sales

Joseph Aguilar-Bohorquez, Randall Akee and Elton Mykerezi

No 404771, 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: American Indian reservations face long-standing barriers to private-sector development. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which enabled the establishment of casino operations on American Indian tribal lands is one of the most consequential sovereignty-driven, place-based interventions in Native communities. We study its impact on local business revenues and job creation by linking geocoded establishment-level microdata to federally recognized reservation boundaries and a panel of tribal casino openings from 1990 to 2019, using a staggered-adoption event study with never-treated reservation controls. Casino openings lead to economically meaningful and persistent growth in reservation business activity: average establishment sales increase by 47% and employment increases by 50% after opening. Importantly, incumbent establishments also expand, with sales increasing by 17% and employment increasing by 26%, indicating that development benefits extend beyond new entry and beyond the casino itself. When excluding gaming-adjacent industries, employment effects remain positive while sales effects attenuate and are less precisely estimated. Overall, the results provide evidence that tribal casino development leads to sustained private-sector expansion inside reservation boundaries, consistent with local demand, business-to-business spending, and visitor-spending spillovers, and highlight a mechanism through which Indigenous self-determined enterprise can contribute to long-run economic development.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea26:404771

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.404771

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