Game Industry News
Oklahoma tribal gaming fees continue growth
Saturday, 05, June, 2010
Five years after the state signed its first tribal gaming compact, money from Oklahoma's 30 gaming tribes is on target this fiscal year to raise nearly twice the amount expected, Oklahoma Treasurer Scott Meacham said Wednesday.Tribal gaming fees have contributed $107.5 million to the state coffers so far this fiscal year, Meacham said. It's expected tribal gaming fees will bring in about $120 million by the end of this fiscal year, June 30, he said.
It was estimated when the state signed the first gaming agreement in January 2005 that the fee would bring in about $70 million a year, said William R. Norman Jr., an attorney who worked on behalf of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, the first tribe to sign the gaming compact.Tribes last fiscal year paid about $105 million to the state and $81 million the year before that, records show. The gaming fee brought in $46 million in the 2007 fiscal year.