Last month, the American Gaming Association revealed the annual gross gaming revenue produced by the commercial industry for 2024. And for the first time, they included a representative from the Indian Gaming Association to weigh in on the tribal gaming side of revenues.

And guess what? The revenues are almost equal. The U.S. commercial revenue hit almost $50 billion in 2024 and the tribal revenue was on pace for $42 billion—official tribal results will be issued by IGA later this year.

Global Gaming Business started publishing this annual supplement, Tribal Government Gaming, soon after the company was formed in 2002. I had been covering Indian gaming for my previous publication since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed in 1988.

Many of the early tribal casinos I visited were nothing more than trailers lashed together or glorified tents—the Sprung structures. But to be fair, some of the early commercial riverboats I climbed aboard in those days weren’t much better. And now look at them!

It wasn’t easy for tribes to be accepted as equal members of the national gaming community. IGRA was only passed because so many tribal bingo parlors had exploded around the country, and Congress believed it needed to act. The reason tribes could introduce bingo was because it was legal in many states for churches and other organizations to offer bingo as a fund raiser. So when tribes began to open the bingo halls on an everyday basis, law enforcement was annoyed.

So IGRA was drawn up to try to limit the tribes to those bingo halls in ways that churches used them. But courts realized that the state laws included no such limitations, and then when the Supreme Court said that tribes could offer whatever kind of gaming was legal in that state—even if it was the “Las Vegas nights” that feature table games and sometimes slot devices—the genie was out of the bottle.

But still, the going was hard for tribal gaming. Once Congress realized what had happened with IGRA, they tried to fix the problems, but couldn’t make any impact. Senators Harry Reid from Nevada and Robert Torricelli from New Jersey accused organized crime of being involved with tribal gaming. When that proved to be untrue, they said the games were rigged. Established gaming companies like Harrah’s, Hilton, Bally’s and others warned players to avoid tribal casinos for that reason.

But when James Maida and his independent test lab GLI showed up and tested the games being used in tribal casinos, he found that they were the same games being offered by the commercial casinos. And then when the commercial casinos realized they could partner with the tribes and get a piece of the action, their objections melted away, too.

Some of the early leaders of tribal gaming, people like Rick Hill, Tim Wapato, Richard Milanovich, Frank Ducheneaux, Melanie Benjamin and many others, fought like the warriors they were to ensure that tribal sovereignty was established and maintained.

The National Indian Gaming Commission, established by IGRA, also played a huge role in establishing the integrity of tribal gaming, although you might not have known it at the time. Any federal oversight of a tribal activity was to be resisted, but if it wasn’t for the first chairman, Tony Hope, who vigorously defended the sovereignty of every tribe, it could have ended before it began.

So let’s celebrate the long history of tribal government gaming and recognize that it’s a strong part of the national economy and a crucial economic engine for many tribes across the country.

But do not rest on your laurels. There are still many battles to fight. While some tribes have worked with the existing commercial casinos in their states to carve out a role for tribes in sports betting and online gaming, other states are still resisting. It’s up to each individual tribe and its leaders to decide what works best for them.

There are also some stains on tribal gaming that need to be addressed—issues like disenrollment, intertribal and intratribal feuds between separate leadership groups, and questions about how tribal gaming revenues are being used. These are certainly contentious issues and can become a black mark. So stay diligent and maintain the integrity of tribal gaming for at least the next seven generations.