"Critics of four ballot measures that could drum up as much as $9 billion in state operating revenue over the next two decades say those agreements are really nothing more than sweetheart deals struck between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and four powerful tribes.

Opponents also say Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 would allow those tribes — the Pechanga Indians, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians — to create mega-casinos bigger than anything in Las Vegas. Wealthy tribes will see money pouring in, they say, while less powerful tribes would be forced out of the gaming business and other Native Americans not associated with gambling would fall deeper into poverty, potentially resulting in increased crime rates for communities surrounding those mega-casinos.

This explosion in legalized gambling, if passed, would come in the form of some 17,000 new slot machines located on sovereign tribal lands, where the state has no fiscal authority.

“There are only 3,000 people in these four tribes. They are going to be more powerful than they already are, and the rich will get richer,” said opponent Peter Dreier, a resident of Pasadena and a political science professor at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. “The hundreds of thousands [of people] who are in poverty won’t see a nickel and, in some of the smaller tribes, the new[ly expanded] casinos will hurt the smaller casinos,” Dreier said."

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Gambling on the future (The Pasadena Weekly 1/31)