US: Tribe breaks ground on USD 170M Yuba casino

The Enterprise Rancheria’s Fire Mountain Casino near Marysville will be located just a few miles north of the highly successful Thunder Valley Casino outside of Lincoln.

However, the new casino will operate on a different scale, with different types of gambling, than Thunder Valley. The Enterprise tribe doesn’t have an approved California gambling compact and will have to make do with so-called Class II gambling programs, such as electronic versions of bingo, instead of the full-fledged slot machines and table games allowed at Class III casinos such as Thunder Valley.

An Enterprise tribal consultant, Charlie Banks-Altekruse, said customers shouldn’t notice much of a difference between Fire Mountain and other casinos. “There’s a very small difference in experience,” he said. “It’s going to have the look and feel of a traditional casino.” He said the facility will include restaurants, bars, gift shops and meeting space and should be able to co-exist with Thunder Valley.

“Maybe people come up for the day from the Bay Area, spend the morning at Thunder Valley and come up and spend the afternoon with us,” he said.

Doug Elmets, a spokesman for Thunder Valley and its owner, the United Auburn Indian Community, said Thunder Valley doesn’t expect to lose any customers to the newcomer.

“It will have no effect,” he said. “None.” He dismissed Fire Mountain as “nothing more than an elaborate bingo hall.”

Nonetheless, the new casino, which is expected to open in about a year, will add to the gambling options in the region. The Wilton Rancheria is looking at two sites in southern Sacramento County, one in Elk Grove and one in Galt, to build a casino and hotel.

Aside from the competitive issues, the Enterprise project has been a source of controversy for some time. The Enterprise tribe actually negotiated a Class III compact, which would have permitted Vegas-style gambling. But the state Legislature didn’t act on the compact amid complaints from Thunder Valley and other tribes that the Enterprise group shouldn’t have been allowed to build a casino at the Yuba location.

The Enterprise Rancheria, formally known as the Estom Yumeka Maidu Tribe of the Enterprise Rancheria, has its ancestral lands in a more remote location in Butte County but was allowed to acquire the Yuba land by the U.S. Interior Department in 2012.

The land is near the Toyota Amphitheater in an area that was once proposed as the site of an auto racetrack. Alan Ginsburg, a developer from Florida, is financing the effort for the tribe.