Hey guys. I'm getting started on my final paper for my Native American Studies class and we have to do "something" on the modern issues native people are facing. I wanted to do a bit on the impact of the Seneca casino in Niagara Falls. I'm looking for how the casino was started (the bit about Niagara Falls giving/selling the Seneca Nation land in downtown), the impact positive/negative on the community and anything else that may be relevant to native relations with the community concerning the casino.

Anyone know where i could get this info? A Google search has led me to either outdated (2005) impact studies or fluffy bull about tribal history etc.

_________________

I might suggest a search of the Buffalo News archives, and perhaps the records of New York State Assembly or something. I come from a bit of a card-playing family, so I can tell you a little bit from my own experience.

In general, I'd say the Seneca Niagara Casino is just an extension of the general expansion of casino gambling. In this particular case, it's important that Canada legalized casino gambling before most states did. Montreal was one of the first places in the Atlantic NE to get a casino, and it was very successful. Niagara Falls Ontario followed suit soon thereafter with the first casino in NF. It was the only place in the Buffalo area (or Toronto, Rochester, etc.) that one could legally gamble and it drew plenty of tourists and cross-border gamblers (myself included) to NFO and was wildly successful. Of course other casinos were to follow soon thereafter to tap into that market, including the second NFO casino, the Falls View (which I've never been to).

Then NY started to want a piece of that action too, so they hatched a scheme to open the Seneca Niagara casino in NFNY. I had already left the area by then, so I'm not too knowledgeable on the details. But of course, it involved NFNY giving a piece of land to the Seneca Nation. They took over the old Convention Center building, and transformed it into the casino. Then of course that succeeded as well because it gave American gamblers and tourists a chance to gamble without crossing the border. My dad plays at the Seneca Allegheny casino often, and he plays at Niagara when he's in the Buffalo area as well. I actually don't even know which Seneca casino came first, but they both thrived, drawing not only people from WNY, but also from Pennsylvania and Ohio, where at least until recently, there was no casino gambling.

OK, I'm going to start watching the game now. Hope that helped.

To follow up, I'd say you might consider focusing on the Allegany Casino instead if your paper is about Indian issues. The reason being it's on res. Niagara wasn't an Indian town before, it won't be after. Salamanca was, or at least was a 50/50 town, and is and will be after IMO. Also, it was NOT a destination town before, and it became one for that Ohio/Pennsylvania crowd I was talking about earlier. (My dad says there's a casino in one of those other two states now or West Virginia or something that's starting to kill the business at Salamanca.)

My two cents.

Let me correct myself. Salamanca was a destination town before, if you wanted smokes or gas.