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    An Oregon tribe's casino bid sparks furor over what land tribes can rightfully call home

    by Hannah Wiley, Los Angeles Times Apr 11, 2024 8 minutes
    A billboard touts expansion plans as construction continues on a hotel and conference center at the Karuk tribe's Rain Rock Casino in Yreka, California, on Feb. 6, 2024.

    YREKA, Calif. — It was midafternoon at the Rain Rock Casino in this faded Gold Rush town, and Jody Criner had just won $47 on the Dancing Drums slot machine, a respectable return on her $5 investment.

    "Cha-ching," Criner said, her black leather jacket reflecting the neon blues, reds and purples flashing from the slots.

    Criner is a Rain Rock regular, often making the 20-mile drive from Big Springs with her girlfriends. She once won $1,200, enough to pay her property taxes for the year, and she dreams of the day she'll need a wheelbarrow to haul out her cash earnings.

    "I don't mind not winning if I have a blast," she said. "Which I usually have a blast."

    Rain Rock's owner, the Karuk Tribe of Siskiyou and Humboldt counties, depends on regulars like Criner to keep the casino afloat. Once the tribe pays off the roughly $70 million in debt it took on to build the Rain Rock, tribal leaders plan to funnel the revenue into improving healthcare, education and housing for its member families.

    But the Karuk fear that those ambitions are in jeopardy.

    The Coquille, a coastal Oregon tribe, is planning a casino about 50 miles north in Medford, a city of 86,000 in the Rogue Valley. Karuk Tribal Chairman Russell "Buster" Attebery worries a competing casino

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