Dakota (given name) Dakota (given name) Dakota is a unisex given name derived from the name of an indigenous Native American tribe: Dakota people or from the name of two states in the United States: North Dakota and South Dakota which are also derived from the Dakota people local to that area. The name is translated to mean "friend", "friendly" or "allies" in the Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee dialects of the Lakota Sioux language. The name has been in occasional use for both sexes in the United States since at least the 1940s. The name's popularity grew in the 1990s in the US. It
Native American gaming held not only that states do not have authority to tax Natives on their reservations, but that they also lack the authority to "regulate" Native activities on their reservations. As Gaming Law Professor Kevin K. Washburn has explained, the stage was now set for Native gaming. Within a few years, enterprising Natives and tribes began to operate Indian bingo operations in numerous different locations around the United States. Under the leadership of Howard Tommie, the Seminole Tribe of Florida built a large high-stakes bingo building on their reservation near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tribe planned for the bingo hall to