In October, Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment became the first tribal enterprise approved to run a casino in the Las Vegas resort corridor. Seven months later, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians announced plans to purchase Palms for $650 million. And Hard Rock International, which is owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, has voiced interest in moving onto the Strip.

“I think (the Palms sale) has tribes across the country thinking about Vegas,” said consultant Josh Swissman of The Strategy Organization. “This is just fortuitous timing for these tribes (to enter the market) given their performance over the years.”

A ‘natural evolution’
U.S. tribal gaming has been around since the 1970s, but operations were initially small, mainly consisting of small bingo halls and gaming facilities.

When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act passed in 1988, establishing a regulatory structure for tribal gaming in the U.S., tribal gaming was worth about $121 million.

By 2017, it had grown to a $32 billion-plus segment, creating nearly half of all U.S. gaming revenue through operations in 28 states, according to a report from the American Gaming Association.

Over the years, tribal casino operators have taken to expanding into markets beyond tribal land. The Hard Rock brand, for instance, operates nine casinos across the U.S., only two of which are in Florida.

“This is really a natural evolution,” said San Diego State University professor Katherine Spilde, who has done extensive research on tribal gaming. “Once you’ve kind of built out your own property and maximized what you can do in the market that you’re in … we see tribes then looking to go into commercial expansion into a casino that’s not on tribal land.”