ONEIDA, N.Y. – Pan-Indian diplomacy may soon bear fruit in a major casino deal between two Mexican states and the Oneida Indian Nation of New York.
Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said prospects “look good at this point” for an agreement to build and manage casinos in the Pacific coast Mexican resort cities of Acapulco and Mazatlan. A delegation from Oneida is expected to fly to Mexico at the end of April to inspect possible building sites.
The estimated cost of the two projects is $500 million.
“We are honored and flattered that Mexican officials would look to the Oneida Nation for assistance in their casino projects,” said Halbritter, who also is chief executive of nation enterprises including Turning Stone Resort Casino.
“It is especially pleasing to know that we can help other Indigenous people in their search for economic empowerment as we continue to renew the bonds established along ancient trade routes.”
News of the still unfinished negotiations leaked out at the end of March after regional officials from the Mexican states of Guerrero and Morelos visited the Oneida’s Turning Stone Resort Casino. The delegates, whose states include the two resort cities, reached an agreement in principle.
Nation sources said the Mexican officials were impressed not only by the casino but by the economic success it brought the Oneida Nation, a success they hope to duplicate for their own Indigenous people.
“One reason we have such good relations is that we are Indigenous people, as the Mexicans are,” Halbritter said. “We also believe in putting our revenue to work for education, social services and infrastructure development, which also appeals to the Mexicans.
“From a business perspective, it would be profitable. From a social and political perspective, what we’ve done for our people and our nation, they would like to do for the constituents of their regions.”
The casino deal follows a long-standing interest in Oneida circles in developing ties with Indigenous peoples throughout the continent. Last year the nation signed an agreement with a cooperative of Mayan farmers in Guatemala to import their coffee production, marketed in the United States under the Maya Gold brand.
The talks coincide with a heightened U. S. interest in Mexico on the part of the Bush administration and a professed desire of the new Mexican government to deal fairly with its Indigenous peoples. But the Oneidas are negotiating as a sovereign government, without involvement from Washington, D.C.
Its future casinos in Mexico would also fall outside of the supervision of the National Indian Gaming Commission, which has jurisdiction only in the United States.
Halbritter said he envisioned Las Vegas-style slot machines and table games such as black jack and roulette. He said the projects could also include golf courses and other resort features.
He noted that Pacific cities, about a one-hour flight apart, were a major destination for U. S. tourists. He said they offered 25,000 hotel rooms, filled to 80 percent capacity through the year.
Start-up and management of the casinos would employ about 200 people from Central New York, where the Oneida Nation is already a major employer.
The connection will also promote side-deals, he said. Shops at the Turning Stone, would start to offer Mexican imports, such as silver, ceramics and weaving. The new casinos would import state-of-the-art slot machines manufactured by the Oneida Nation at its Vernon factory.
So far, the Oneidas have negotiated with Mexican state officials such as Juan Garcia Delgadilla, tourism director for Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, and Alfonso Arenas, director general of economic development in Morelos, some 100 miles north, which includes Mazatlan. It was not clear to what extent the Mexican federal government would be involved.
Delgadilla said the Mexicans were attracted to the Oneida Nation not only because of its successful track record with Turning Stone, but primarily because of the way it has used its prosperity to benefit its people and the region’s economy.
He said the casinos at Mazatlan and Acapulco could directly create from 3,000 to 5,000 jobs and an equal number indirectly for a region suffering considerable poverty and unemployment. Many in the three states around the projects are Native people with limited economic opportunities.
Planning is preliminary, Halbritter said. “We still have to do the necessary studies. We’ve been shown a number of properties and we’re going to go down and look at them.”
But the deal “is such a good business opportunity that I have no doubt it will be very successful.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Halbritter said. “I think we’ll do it in a way that’s conscientious to the people of Mexico. We know what it’s like to be poverty-stricken.
“We feel like the people of Morelos and Guerrero are our brothers and sisters,” Halbritter said in a radio interview broadcast from Turning Stone to two major radio stations in Mexico.
“The Oneidas suffered 200 years of poverty and now enjoy a measure of economic success. The Creator tells us that we are to share our good fortune with others. Working with the Indigenous people of Mexico is an ideal way of doing that.”
