Economic Evidence on the Effects of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act on Indians and Non-Indians

When Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, some tribal leaders perceived the state compacting provision required for casino-style gaming on tribal lands as an erosion of tribal sovereignty that could undermine their early economic development successes and disrupt a precariously successful federal-tribal relationship with regard to tribal self-determination. In hindsight, however, the substantial growth and myriad positive impacts of the first twenty years of tribal gaming under IGRA reveal the ways that the federal regulatory framework laid out in the law resolved numerous legal dilemmas that had plagued tribal gaming expansion. It is now clear that the predictability provided by successful tribal- state compact negotiations allowed the necessary capital investments to produce a robust tribal government gaming industry across much of Indian Country. Therefore, an analysis of tribal government gaming’s impacts on tribal communities and neighboring localities is best framed in the context of the federal law that continues to shape the industry today

The Type Of Homework Assignment And Its Potential To Influence Student Motivation And Language Learning In A High School Spanish Language Classroom

The research question addressed in this study was, how does the type of homework assignment influence student motivation and Spanish language learning in the classroom? It documents one teacher’s implementation of two lessons in a unit of study to evaluate student in- class Spanish language use, homework scores, test scores and student perceptions on motivation and homework. The teacher records student data and identifies research literature to provide meaning and context to the study in the area of Spanish language learning. She defines the areas of success and areas of limitations in conducting an action research study and concludes that student motivation is a key component when implementing and assigning homework assignments. She also describes how the type of homework assignment assigned contributes to a student’s perception on motivation and his or her learning of the Spanish language

A Study of Protein Content and its Relationships to Other Phenotypic Characters in Iterspecific Oat Crosses

Plant hybridizers in the past century depended primarily upon the crossing of cultivars with superior agronomic and quality characteristics as a method of improving yield potential of hybrids and derived pure lines. The hybridizer is continually faced with · the challenge of finding genetic sources of resistance to diseases which cause reduction in yie1d and often lower grain qua1ity. Often there is no known superior source of resistance within the species. This has motivated a search of species related to common oats, Avena sativa L., as sources for developing resistance in cultivated varieties. Concern is intensifying over the rapidly expanding world population and mankind\u27s ability to cope with the ever-increasing need for more food. One proposed method of alleviating the food problem is to improve the nutritional quality of seed of economically important plants by increasing protein content. Oats is one of the more widely grown cereal crops in the temperate climates of the world. It is used primarily in feeds and in breakfast cereals. Little research has been reported on attempts to determine the relationships among factors involved in the improvement of its quality. The purpose of this experiment was to determine: ( 1) whether a relationship existed between ·protein content and the selected phenotypic characters that differentiated the parents; (2) the extent of the relationship between protein content and the characters studied; and (3) the feasibility of using parents from related species to improve our present cultivars

Identifying Opportunities To Inform And Inspire: Tribal Casino Employee Perceptions Of Tribal Self Sufficiency And Philanthropy

While the business case for employee engagement and satisfaction is well documented in the service profit chain and the cost savings of employee retention are easily quantified, the means to achieving these related goals in the casino industry is not well known. The pathway to employee engagement and satisfaction is even less well known in the tribal government gaming industry. This paper finds that employees in casinos that are owned by tribal governments in the United States find particular pride in sharing the tribal government’s self-sufficiency, community engagement, and philanthropic activities with casino guests, who often wonder “where the money goes.” The paper supports our case with data collected from tribal casino employees in four Southern California casinos that demonstrate that employees are a good source to share crafted messages with casino guests. We put these philanthropic and charitable contributions in the larger context of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies that commercial casino companies have implemented through their trade association, the American Gaming Association, in order to manage perceptions of the gambling industry in the United States

Solving nonlinear optimization problems that have a nondifferentiable objective function by using a pseudo gradient search.

The gradient search fails in an optimization problem where the objective function is not differentiable--such as nonlinear multiregressions based on generalized Choquet integrals. In cases such as this, we may replace the gradient search with a pseudo gradient search to determine the optimal search direction. The pseudo gradient can be obtained algorithmically from a data set containing the objective attribute and relevant arguments of the objective function. The algorithm for the pseudo gradient search is based on a neural network model which uses statistical techniques such as root mean square error to determine the optimal search direction and the optimal step length. Similar to the gradient search, the pseudo gradient search has a fast convergence rate, but a disadvantage is how easily it falls in a local extrema. Hence, choosing a suitable initial point for the pseudo gradient search is rather important. A genetic algorithm is used as an initialization method because it has the advantage of being a global search, but it is only allowed to run for a limited number of iterations due to its slow convergence rate. The pseudo gradient search may be widely applied in nonlinear multiregression, classification, and decision making

The free-play tax deduction debate: How academic research can help

Free-play is the primary play incentive for slot players in many jurisdictions, with some campaigns eclipsing $50 million in annual redemptions. The efficacy of these incentives remains questionable at best, creating some contentious tax policy issues. Operators want to deduct the face value of these offers from taxable gaming win, based in part on the assumption that they expand the tax base; however, many regulators and taxing authorities question this claim. Any failure to fully recover redeemed free-play creates a deduction that is partially funded by tax payers. Arguments on both sides of this complex tax policy issue are thoroughly covered. An extensive review of academic research suggests that most campaigns are not fully recovering redeemed free-play credits. Recommendations include the use of extant time series models to measure returns on free-play campaigns. These models will help operators improve returns and address regulator concerns regarding unwarranted tax deductions. The wide range of different tax treatments across jurisdictions suggests regulatory uncertainty and a need for policy guidance. The data-driven policy reform advanced herein offers an equitable win-win scenario. Anything short of this is likely to fuel continued speculation by both sides, further straining the relationship between regulators and operators

Measuring the Impact of Reduced Free-play Offers on Casino Loyalty Behavior

Performance data from a tribal casino operating in the Western United States indicated a general insensitivity to free-play (FP) offer reductions. This finding addresses considerable industry-wide concerns regarding the potential for negative customer reactions to conspicuous offer reductions. Further, FP campaigns are costly annual investments representing the lion’s share of casino marketing budgets in many jurisdictions. A within-subjects design featured the random assignment of 100 loyalty program members from a common offer tier to each of four groups, with the experimental groups receiving different yet substantial reductions in FP during the post-demotion period. The results demonstrated a lack of significant differences in gaming spend and visitation, across the pre- and post-demotion periods. Our findings generally failed to indicate support for social inequity theory, aligning more with the literature on force-of-habit behavior. Additionally, the growing body of FP research was meaningfully extended