Texas lawmakers are considering competing measures which taken together envision a massive expansion of casino gaming in a state that has long opposed it.
The first is a bill still that would allow nine casinos, six of them at the state’s racetracks. The second is a bipartisan push in the legislature to amend the state Constitution to allow the Alabama-Coushatta and Tigua Indian tribes to restart gaming operations that were shut down years ago.
The racetrack bill is expected to encounter more of the state’s historical opposition to expanded gaming, despite a political sweetener that earmarks a portion of the anticipated tax haul for a government-backed insurance program to aid victims of hurricanes and other natural disasters.
The bill faces a second obstacle in the form of opposition from Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation, which would be eligible for a license as owner of Lone Star Park racetrack but has donated heavily to anti-gambling Texas lawmakers to head off competition to a casino it owns near the border in Oklahoma.
It’s a different dynamic underlying the constitutional amendment issue, and support for bringing it to the state’s voters in November is reported to be stronger.
Although Texas is home to thousands of machine games that survive in a regulatory gray area, casinos have been a non-starter in the state. Only one, the Kickapoo Tribe’s Lucky Eagle Casino in Eagle Pass, operates legally as a so-called Class II venue under federal law, which means it is limited to slot machines that function as mechanical lotteries. The state has refused to negotiate a Class III agreement with the Kickapoo to allow it to run Las Vegas-style games such as blackjack and house-banked slots.
Back at the turn of the century, the Tigua and Alabama-Coushatta challenged the state’s intransigence by opening Class III casinos on their reservations. But the state sued in federal court and won orders closing them.
The difference with the current push is that it restricts the two tribes to the same limited gaming as the Kickapoo, so there is weight to the argument advanced by proponents that it merely restores a level economic playing field.
The amendment’s sponsors in the House of Representatives, Democrat Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Republican James White of Woodville, say they believe most Texans support this goal.
Thompson said, “We (Rep. White and I) will ask the legislature to let the people decide.”
