A New Casino on the West Plains

This past Tuesday I went to the Spoko Fuel Station in Airway Heights where the Spokane Tribe was holding a rally to help promote their effort to build a new casino. It would be the second casino in the community, following the Kalispel's Northern Quest Casino on the other side of town.

They put on a good presentation, which you can see on their website. I'm happy to see more construction jobs, I guess, even if I have some deep concerns about the traffic and the effect on the community. I'm struggling a bit with the economics of the thing--it feels like the two casinos would be splitting the same market, not adding. It also bugged me more than a little to hear about the pitiful graduation rate on the reservation when they bussed kids from the high school down to hold signs and gather signatures.

It'll be an interesting thing to watch.