The Navajo Nation on Monday signed an agreement under which it will lease the rights to more than 1,000 slot machines to three gaming tribes near Phoenix and Tucson. The deal, also signed by the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix and Chandler, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, north of Fountain Hills, and the Tohono O'odham Nation, near Tucson, is expected to generate more than USD 100,000 for the Navajos over several years.

Tucson - Fourteen years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, tribal casinos in Tucson have not met federal and state requirements to lift American Indians out of poverty and reduce their dependence on taxpayer money. This despite the fact that this is what federal and state compacts that legalized Indian casinos called for. The Pascua Yaqui government since 1997 has more than doubled its per-person spending of federal dollars, and aid to the Tohono O'odham Nation has been up nearly 10 percent in that time.