Tribal Casinos Hit Hard During COVID-19 Closures

• All state-run commercial casinos were ordered to close due to coronavirus.
• Tribal casinos followed shortly after and closed their doors as well.
• Tribal casinos have lost over a billion dollars due to the closures.

LAS VEGAS — After all state-run commercial casinos were ordered to close, Tribal casinos have closed their doors as well in an effort to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Like other state-run casinos, they have struggled with the losses as they have lost upwards of a billion dollars.

Tribal Casino Closures

Tribal casinos have taken both direct and indirect hits as they closed their doors.

According to research conducted by Meister Economic Consulting, they have been directly affected as the $1.5 billion loss was from revenue normally generated through gaming and non-gaming activity at their locations.

To add to this, a total of 296,000 legal gambling employees have been laid off and/or put out of work.

They are also suffering from $332 million in lost wages and $240 million that would normally go to local, state, and federal governments through taxes on revenue have also been lost.

They have been indirectly affected as well. Businesses that supply the casinos with goods and services have lost a majority of their revenue with these closures. This could hurt casinos the most as some of them have small shops and restaurants on their premises that won’t be able to afford to stay open.

Another reason would be that when these casinos are back up and running, those companies’ costs could be too expensive for casinos to afford as they try to recuperate their own losses.

Online casinos could also be an option for certain tribal gaming operators but that would only get them so far. Only five states in the U.S. allow for legal online casinos, which means many of these gambling establishments would still be in the dark when it comes to this option.

As for government assistance, they do fall under the government's COVID Aid, Relief and Economic Stimulus. They are able to receive loans up to 2.5 times their monthly payroll which they would be able to pay employees and basically keep their businesses up and running for the time being.