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A12 business
Monday 27 February 2023
Casinos and consulting? Pandemic

spurs tribes to diversify

costs, its necessity became
clear during the early
phases of the pandemic,
when tribally owned casi-
nos were shut down to miti-
gate COVID-19 transmis-
sion and gaming-depen-
dent tribes were left with
little incoming revenue,"
according to a new report
from the Center for Indian
Country Development at
the Federal Reserve Bank
of Minneapolis.
The report found that
many tribes are increas-
ingly doing business with
A van blocks a main entrance to Foxwoods Resort Casino, in the federal government,
Mashantucket, Conn., May 22, 2020. especially the U.S. Depart-
Associated Press ment of Defense.

The Mashantucket Pe-
By SUSAN HAIGH chines and poker rooms to quots' non-gambling en-
Associated Press support future generations. tity, Command Holdings,
MASHANTUCKET, Conn. In Michigan, the Match- last year made its largest
(AP) — When the COV- E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band acquisition to date: WWC
ID-19 pandemic shuttered of Pottawatomi Indians, or Global, a Florida-based
Foxwoods Resort Casino Gun Lake Tribe, recently management consulting
in Connecticut for three announced a 25-year plan firm that predominantly
months in 2020, its owners, to develop hundreds of works with federal agen-
the Mashantucket Pequot acres near its casino into a cies, including the de-
Tribal Nation, had to reck- corridor with housing, retail, fense and state depart-
on with decades of relying manufacturing and a new ments. WWC announced
heavily on gambling as the 15-story hotel. A non-gam- in December that it had
tribe's main source of rev- bling entity owned by the been awarded a $37.5 mil-
enue. Little River Band of Ottawa lion contract supporting
"The fact that the casino Indians, also in Michigan, the federal Cybersecurity
revenues went from mil- is now selling "NativeWahl" and Infrastructure Security
lions to zero overnight just burger franchises to other Agency. WWC Global CEO
fully reiterated the need for tribes after forming a 2021 Jon Panamaroff applaud-
diverse revenue streams," partnership with Wahlburg- ed the Mashantucket Pe-
said Tribal Chairman Rod- ers, the national burger quots' casino and hospitali-
ney Butler. chain created by the ce- ty business but noted that it
The 1,000-member tribe lebrity brothers Paul, Mark can be subject to the "ups
has since expanded its ef- and Donnie Wahlberg. and downs of the mar-
forts to get into the federal Some tribes, with and with- ket," making it important to
government contracting out casinos, have gotten branch out economically.
business, making it one involved in a wide range A member of the Sun'aq
of several tribal nations of non-gambling busi- Tribe of Kodiak, Alaska, he
to look beyond the ca- nesses, such as trucking, credited the Mashantuck-
sino business more seri- construction, consulting, et Pequots' tribal leaders
ously after the coronavirus health care, real estate, with doubling down on di-
crisis. Tribal leaders and cannabis and marketing versification efforts during
tribal business experts say over the past decade or the pandemic instead of
the global pandemic has longer while others have "shying away and trying to
been the latest and clear- been branching out more hunker down."
est sign that tribal govern- recently. Butler said the tribe
ments with casinos can't "While enterprise diversi- hopes non-gambling rev-
depend solely on slot ma- fication can come with enues, including from
a planned family resort
with a 91,000-square-foot
(8,450-square-meter) wa-
ter park that's expected to
open in 2025, will eventu-
ally comprise 50% to 80%
of the Mashantucket Pe-
quots' portfolio, providing
"stability and certainty"
when another challeng-
ing event undoubtedly will
happen.q