The Seminoles' first 'high-stakes bingo hall' was a ramshackle affair, but it piled on the profits paving the way for a thriving, Florida-based casino empire generating some $900m a year for the 3,300-strong tribe, notes USA Today. Then, in 1979, under a colourful chief, James Billie, they became the first Native American tribe to move into gambling.
The Seminole Indians: from bingo halls to Hard Rock For the next 30 years, they eked out a living from tobacco, citrus fruit and cattle. After four decades, the hostilities ceased but it wasn't until the 1950s that the tribe acquired sovereign nation status. The Seminoles have always been fighters, says the FT: they boast they never surrendered during the mid-19th century American Indian wars, despite coming close to extinction after being cornered in alligator-infested swamps by federal troops.
