I've been told by a friend that a tribe in Michigan started a gaming opera-
tion on a small scale, and reinvested part of the profits into expanding the
range of games offerred. If memory serves me, running the games is handled
exclusively by local non-natives, while security officers are exclusively
members of the tribe. Ownership of the casino is entirely in the hands of
the tribe.
On the other hand, starting out building a full-scale casino requires large
amounts of capital, which tribes rarely have. In choosing this option, it
becomes neccessary to bring in outside investors, who typically are looking
out for only their own financial profit. This, so I've been told, is what
happened at Akwesasne, which straddles the New York-Quebec border.
-Pat Crowe, SUNY at Buffalo