I work in the casino gaming industry, and i see know alot of the different people of different tribes that do the convention circut.
Yes Rip Muchleshoot is one of our big and very 1st customers.
the Ticket in Ticket out business in casinos stated up there in WA state. they were the 1st.
As you meet the peoples of all the different tribes the Cherokee are very very large tribe!(many tribes/clans were some what assimilated into the cherokee nation.
Cherokee nation is not the biggest. The largest tribe by numbers and members are (brain fart) a western tribe and they dont yet have a casino or a gaming commision , I wanna say the Navajo (not posative) im almost posative the Apache have a few casinos.
But here in Western NC you have the one casino in NC which is Harrahs (managed) but cherokee owned. All the casinos in OK are cherokee!
the cherokee had at one time the largest tribe per White Euro. invasion. here are som cherokee links to read on.
prior to euro invasion -
http://cherokeehistory.com/original.gifsome good reads for those interested....
http://cherokeehistory.com/because im from NC -
http://www.cherokee-nc.com/Btw supposedly along the lines on my family i got s drip of blood from (i cant spell it) saquaguwa - the chick who helped lewis and clark.
but every native american nation/tribe or clan deserves all of our ut most repect!