A new study shows Indian gaming has brought huge economic gains to California tribes. But the quality of life on most reservations is still sub-par. KPBS reporter Andrew Phelps has more.
The report says median household income on gaming reservations shot up 55 percent in the '90s. Growth was much slower on reservations without card houses or betting clubs.
UC Riverside's Kate Spilde Contreras says the poverty rate of gaming tribes was a high 26 percent in 2000. But it was 36 percent a decade earlier.
Spilde: Things have improved significantly, but the conditions were so dire that there's still so much more room for improvement. And certainly the improvement hasn't been equal between the tribes with gaming and the tribes without gaming.
The year 2000 brought Indian casinos and then revenue-sharing agreements. Contreras says that helped even out the growth of non-gaming tribes.
Andrew Phelps, KPBS News.
