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The white urban population visited them not
only to gamble legally, but to partake in the
sex industry operating around them (Crush and
Welling
1983). Regarding actual benefits for Africans on
the Bantustans, however, the casinos had little
effect.
The deals brokered between Kerzner and local
leaders were often outside the intentions
(however
7 The reasons for the shift in South African
state policy from Segregation to Apartheid are
of course varied and
subject to much debate (Bonacich [1981], for
instance, argues that it was an attempt by the
Afrikaner state to protect
white workers from wage competition, while Wolpe
[1972] points to increasing militancy by black
workers in urban
centers); at this point I wish merely to
acknowledge such debates in order to situate how
gambling emerged as one
economic development strategy in the homelands.
11
impractical) of the original Territories Act.
Sun imported workers and managers from Europe to
staff the
casinos, while proceeds were channeled to
Bantustan leaders rather than invested in
Bantustan
infrastructure. And the system of self-auditing
was associated with a high degree of fraud,
skimming and
money laundering within the casinos.8
Over the past several decades U.S. federal
policy towards Indians, as part of a larger
transition
towards the logic of state-disinvestment and
neo-liberalism, has also shifted towards one of
Indian selfdetermination
(Deloria and Lytle 1984; Morris 1992; Wunder
1994).9 Tribes in turn have experimented
with various economic develo pment schemes to
attract capital to reservations (Cornell and
Kalt 1993).
Yet these tribal—private sector partnerships
have been characterized by corruption and the
exploitation of
tribal and reservation resources by private
parties (Gedicks 1993; McCulloch 1994; Anderson
1995).
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