NORTH COUNTY -- At about 21 stories tall, Harrah's Rincon Casino and Resort's new hotel addition towers over virtually all other North County structures. It could easily be a symbol for the state's booming American Indian gambling industry.

When completed in mid-December, the hotel in Valley Center will have 650 rooms to accommodate an ever-growing demand for Indian gambling in the county, which has eight other tribal casinos dotting rural areas.

And more are planned.

Such projects fueled California's Indian gambling revenues in 2003, according to an Indian Gaming Industry Report released recently by a private consulting firm. The state's gambling tribes generated $4.2 billion in revenue last year, 17.6 percent more than in 2002, according to the report.

"The growth has been going at a strong, steady pace," said Alan Meister, an economist with the Los Angeles-based Analysis Group and the writer of the report.

Much of the growth came from facility expansions such as hotels, restaurants and other amenities, which allowed Indian tribes to attract more customers for overnight stays at their casinos, Meister said.

The state's Indian casino increase in revenue mirrored a nationwide growth of $1.7 billion last year for a total of $16.2 billion. It grew much faster than the 1.4 percent reported by commercial gambling operations, which include those in Nevada and New Jersey.

Meister said he culled information from both public and industry insider sources to arrive at the estimates, because individual Indian casinos do not make their revenues public.

The report's estimates are far less than the oft-reported $5 billion to $6 billion the industry is said to generate. Nevertheless, Meister's assessments closely match regional and national figures published by federal authorities that monitor the industry.

According to the National Indian Gaming Commission, tribal casinos pulled in $16.7 billion in 2003, a 13.7 percent increase over the 2002 total.

The commission's figures said casinos in California and northern Nevada fueled much of the growth. Revenues there totaled nearly $4.7 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion over 2002.

Locally, casinos have expanded their facilities in each of the three years since they opened in 2001.

Rincon's Valley Center casino and resort opened in August 2002 with 200 rooms. But the hotel was dwarfed a year later by the Pala Indian band's $105 million, 550-room hotel addition about 10 miles away and the Pechanga tribe's 14-story, 522-room hotel in Temecula that opened in 2001.

With so much competition, the future is volatile for local tribes, said Rincon Chairman John Currier. He added that industry figures do little to tell what individual tribes may be going through.

"It's more of an industry number," Currier said. "It's incorrect to say that all tribes are growing substantially."

There are five tribes in North County that operate casinos, which range in size from Pala's 2,000-slot casino and resort to the La Jolla band's Palomar Mountain road-stop "slot arcade" with 30 slot machines. The San Pasqual band operates 1,150 slot machines at its Valley View Casino in Valley Center and the Santa Ysabel band near Lake Henshaw is planning a $30 million casino on its reservation.

To secure their business futures, five tribes renegotiated their gambling agreements with the state, giving up some of their revenue but gaining additional slot machines and longer-term deals. Tribal casinos are currently limited to 2,000 slot machines per tribe.

Among the tribes that renegotiated their deals were the Pauma and Pala bands in North County. Pauma wants to build a larger, $250 million casino and resort with its business partners, Caesars Entertainment Inc., of Las Vegas, to replace its mid-size casino in Pauma Valley.

Pala will probably look to expand its facility to include more than its current 2,000 machines.

Indian gambling critics say such growth in California's gambling industry highlights their argument for more state regulation.

"What is troubling is that the 1999 compacts allowed the growth to occur without allowing the state to put safeguards," said Cheryl Schmit, director of Stand Up for California, an industry watchdog. "We are already a full-service gaming state, we're not going to be able to turn back time."

Meister said California's Indian gambling tribes are following a familiar formula for success by creating facilities that include amenities, such as spas and entertainment venues that are popular in Las Vegas.

In the report, Meister noted that California's non-gambling revenues increased to $227 million, or about 24 percent more than in 2002, which apparently held true in North County casinos.

North County's five casinos operate about 4,500 slot machines, about the same number as last year. Tribes here added bars, restaurants and gambling floor space to their facilities this year.

In 2003, there were 54 California Indian tribes operating 56 casinos, five more than in 2002, according to the report. Those tribes operated an estimated 56,000 slot machines, about 9,000 more than the previous year.

With its explosive growth, California's Indian gaming industry is the third largest in the country, behind New Jersey and Nevada. If the growth continues, California could overtake New Jersey, which generated $4.4 billion in gambling revenue in 2003, as the second largest gambling area in the country, according to the study.

Tribal gambling also provided 240,000 jobs nationwide, $7.1 billion in wages and $5.3 billion in tax revenue.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.