Fred Dakota, ‘Father of Indian Gaming’ Dies Aged 84

Fred Dakota, former chairman of Michigan’s Keweenaw Bay Amerind Community (KBIC), has died elderly 84. Dakota was known by some as ‘the begetter of American Indian gaming’ for his DIY cassino trading operations and resulting sound battles.

In the 1980s, the begetter of five, who ne'er made it past 8th grade, took on the federal governance inward court of justice o'er the right of Michigan tribes to order gaming activities on their monarch land.

According to the tribe, Dakota died Mon at his place inward Baraga in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

His story is told in item in an question Dakota gave to My North inwards 2014.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled that states did non hold the say-so to assess Native Americans on their reservations or to regularize their activities, provided those activities were not illegal below res publica law. This spurred many tribes inwards states across the US to launch bingo operations.

In 1980, with the target of curtain raising their own high-stakes bingo parlor, KBIC council members were putting unitedly their own place of bingo regulations that would live written into the tribe’s constitution, to be approved by the Bureau of American Indian Affairs (BIA). At the time, Dakota was prexy and CEO of the tribe.

Just for fun, the council added gambling casino gaming into the mix, too. And learned the BIA took a long time to respond to anything in those days, they added a supplying that stipulated the request would be approved within deuce weeks if the department took no action. It didn’t disappoint.

Dakota would later debate inwards court of justice this gave the tribe the rightfulness to government issue gaming licenses on its land.

Building The Pines

Dakota decided to read things a step further. On learning that the province of stops permitted cassino gaming for a limited figure of benevolent events, he was pretty sure that meant he could undetermined his have full-fledged casino. The sleep of the tribal council was unconvinced, so he decided to go-it-alone.

Armed with a freshly minted KBIC gaming permission and a $10,000 loan from the bank, he converted his brother-in-law’s garage into a casino, The Pines. He built the twenty-one tables himself and bought pliant chips from a local store. He and his wife learned how to trade the games and ran the surgical procedure themselves.

The Pines was an instant hit, so often so that by 1984 Dakota had leased bring down from the tribe and reinforced a 3,200-square-foot casino. But some members of the tribal council disapproved of Dakota’s trading operations and called the US Attorney General’s Office.

The compositor's case went to court. Dakota’s argumentation was that tribes had the right wing to regulate legal activities and the KBIC had written regulations for casino gambling. And he had a gambling casino license based on those regulations.

Paving the Way

Dakota lost and the Pines was shut down. But perversely, the court’s conclusion emboldened several other stops tribes to set in motion gambling casino operations.

A important division of the verdict was that cassino gaming was only if permitted under Great Lakes State law of nature for nonprofit organizations, not common soldier individuals or corporations. The tribes began to contend they were non-profit-making organizations.

Dakota appealed, unsuccessfully, and planned to read the display case to the US Supreme Court. But he ran out of money.

He may even out experience been successful in the highest court inwards the land. Just a few years later, the tribunal ruled in favor of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians of California, which used the same sound reasoning regarding its right on to offer up gaming.

Teacher and Elder

That decision led to the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which codified Native American gaming and protected a tribe’s redress to tender gaming on its crowned head land.

Dakota may have lost inward court, but his actions helped kickstart a multibillion dollar industry.

He was later elected tribal chairman, serving for 20 years, and fought to base the KBIC’s Chippewa Casino inwards Baraga.

In a statement, the tribe described him as a instructor and elder, a “passionate and courageous leader who was willing to use up risks.”