Importantly, the benefits don’t stop at the reservation borders.

Education, health care, nutrition, cultural and environmental preservation, and public safety – all these programs that we offer are possible because of the revenue from our Tribal-owned businesses. Revenue from our gaming operation allows us to offer services to our members and improve life on the reservation. Tribal government gaming is working exactly as Congress intended when it passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). It’s hard to overstate the positive impact of tribal government gaming it’s the only economic development that has ever worked in Indian Country. While other governmental units in Minnesota, such as cities and counties, receive funding from the state for basic government operations or can turn to taxation to raise operating revenue, the Prairie Island Indian Community’s primary revenue source for funding its government is from these gaming activities. Importantly, the revenue received from these tribal gaming activities goes directly toward funding the operation of tribal government services. Today, Treasure Island is the largest employer of Goodhue County, and a premier destination resort and casino in the Upper Midwest, attracting hundreds of thousands of guests each year, and featuring the second-largest hotel property in the state of Minnesota. The Prairie Island Indian Community negotiated and signed two compacts with the state of Minnesota authorizing two types of casino games: video games of chance (1988) and blackjack (1991), and Treasure Island Resort & Casino was soon in operation. Minnesota tribes were among the first to act. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was enacted by the United States Congress on October 17, 1988, to regulate gaming on Indian Lands and promote “tribal economic development, self-sufficiency, and strong tribal governments.” Those roots spread quickly when in 1988 the federal government recognized the sovereign right of tribes to operate gaming on their lands. For the first time, the Tribe had an economic engine to drive its economy, and the roots of self-sufficiency started to grow on Prairie Island. Gaming got its start on Prairie Island in 1984 when our Tribal Council authorized the play of high stakes bingo. Tribal gaming has transformed not just the Prairie Island Indian Community but all of Indian Country it is our new buffalo, providing tribes with the economic means to be self-sufficient governments.

Island resort and casino bingo