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Gambling Boom in Southern Oklahoma Lures Residents from Dallas

1 hour drive is nothing for Alan Reese to go the casino run by Indians in Durant, Okla. His home in Dallas' northern suburbs to the blackjack tables of the new Choctaw Casino and Resort, 10 miles north of the Red River.

"It's not even two counties away, straight up (U.S.) Highway 75," said Reese, 58, who also has visited the nearby Winstar Casino, run by the Chickasaw Nation, just past the state line on Interstate 35. "Makes you wonder how long Texas will take to see what's going on up here."

The new Casinos already have crimped the flow of Texas gamblers to northern Louisiana, and in the view of at least one gambling expert, they give casino advocates in Texas a clear example of how taxable gaming money is leaving the state.

Voters passed a referendum in late 2004 giving Indian tribes the right to offer poker, blackjack and Las Vegas - style slot. North Texans such as Reese are fueling a gambling boom in southern Oklahoma.

Bill Thompson, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor of public administration who studies the gaming industry said, "Shreveport attracts Texans, but these (Oklahoma casinos) are so close to the border and so dependent on Texas players, they're a little different." "They'll serve to increase the pressure on Texas. They can't have any other effect."

The Durant-based Choctaw Nation opened its $60 million roadside casino-hotel-coliseum complex last May. It houses 2,000 slot machines, 32 blackjack tables, a high-tech 100-seat off-track betting parlor and an 18-table poker room where on a recent Friday afternoon, 10 games of the popular Texas Hold 'Em were under way.

"This is southern Oklahoma. You'd never see this kind of big-name entertainment here. You'd have to drive to Dallas," said Janie Dillard, the nation's executive director of gaming. A new 128,000-square-foot coliseum behind the casino has hosted acts such as Reba McEntire, Montgomery Gentry and Sammy Kershaw. Instead, it seems, Dallas is driving here.

Despite the fact that the Choctaws and Chicksaws don't serve liquor, and table games such as craps or roulette are not on the gambling menu, they have taken a bite out of business at the six full-service casinos in Shreveport-Bossier City, La., officials there said.

The Choctaws, who inhabit a 10-county region in the southeastern part of the state, are similarly upgrading a casino on the Arkansas state line across from Fort Smith, adding a hotel and more slots, Dillard said. "We weigh what Arkansas will do, and we expect one day they'll have gaming, too," she said.

 

Sunday, September 03 , 2006
Edward O'Connor