Jackpot! The Employment Effects of Gaming Revenue Allocation Plans on Native American Tribes

Revenue allocation plans (RAPs) are one way in which Native American tribal governments distribute their casino profits equally to every member of the tribe. This study matches tribes with approved RAPs to their respective “treatment” counties. These treatment counties are then matched and compared to control counties of similar geography and population through difference-in-difference analysis. Through this analysis, it is apparent that there are no effects of RAPs on unemployment rates in treatment counties – however, there seems to be a slight positive effect on employment-to-population ratios and labor force participation rates. This paper finds that the RAP in 22 counties (by proxy, tribes) studied do not follow the income effect. Instead, the study suggests that windfall (or non-labor) income on these tribes has a positive, yet small, effect on labor supply.