Harrah's Cherokee Casino and Hotel, an enterprise of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, now has an 88,000-square-foot casino, 576-room luxury hotel, 15,000-square-foot conference center and 1,500-seat showroom that hosts top performers like Gretchen Wilson and Brooks and Dunn.

What began in 1995 as a small tribal casino in Cherokee, N.C., has grown to become the largest employer in western North Carolina and a driving factor in development, advancement and growth for families and communities across the entire region, according to Joyce Dugan, director of external relations and communications at Harrah's Cherokee.

Harrah's Cherokee Casino and Hotel, an enterprise of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, now has an 88,000-square-foot casino, 576-room luxury hotel, 15,000-square-foot conference center and 1,500-seat showroom that hosts top performers like Gretchen Wilson and Brooks and Dunn.

In late January, the tribe approved another $650 million expansion for the facility, which will add a third 22-story tower to the hotel and another 500 rooms and 28 creek-side suites, a 16,000-square-foot luxury spa and a casino expansion to accommodate 5,200 games instead of its current 3,400. Expansion plans include building three new parking garages, which will double vehicle capacity, and adding four new restaurants and various retail outlets.

"As a tribe, we have been able to capitalize on the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains, which surround our 56,000-square-acre Qualla Boundary, by driving more tourism to the area which has resulted in more jobs for tribal members and others living in the area," Dugan says. "Before the casino opened, unemployment on the reservation during the winter months sometimes exceeded 40 percent. Today, it has dropped to between 2.6 and 3.9 percent.

"A lot of people in this country don't understand why or how Indian tribes are able to have gaming on their lands, especially in states that do not allow gaming, like North Carolina," says Dugan, who was the tribe's principal chief when the casino opened. "In 1988, Congress passed the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which provides the statutory structure for gaming on Indian Lands, requiring that tribes negotiate compacts with their state governments, which can set restrictions, such as size of the gaming floor, number of machines, kinds of machines and/or games. And the law is very specific in its requirement that Indian gaming be for the economic benefit of the members of the tribe."

Every member of the tribe is considered a shareholder, Dugan says. Tribal law requires that 50 percent of net revenue be paid in payments to each tribal member. The other 50 percent is designated by tribal government for community and recreation services.

Not All Open Arms
Despite such economic success, Dugan says it took a while before the tribe really recognized the casino business for what it is: a source of economic development for the whole region.

"We were afraid of it at first because in the past, any time the tribe entered a new business venture that looked promising, it turned out not to be," she says. But while Harrah's Cherokee has pumped millions of dollars into the regional economy, the casino had its detractors, especially in the beginning. "There was controversy within the tribe over whether to enter into this kind of business," Dugan says. "We had failures in the past, and some people were opposed to gaming just out of principle or for religious reasons. There was fear of what it might do to our small community, and to our culture and traditions."

Dugan says the Tribal Council "went out on a limb" when it voted for the casino in 1994. "As usually happens with a controversial issue, the opposition is usually the most vocal, but the Tribal Council made its decision because they believed it was a form of economic survival," Dugan says. "And they were right to do so, considering the success of the business and the impact to the community."