The Eastern Shawnee Tribe’s Bordertown Casino and Arena in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, just across the Missouri state line, will hold a grand reopening on Friday, April 2. The country-western themed casino will offer 537 gaming machines, a restaurant and banquet hall—plus an arena that will host bull-riding events and concerts. General Manager Rick Smith said, “We have a 40-by-40 number-one hickory wood dance floor. And we have a sound system, and lighting system that we’ve paid over 0,000 for. So it’ll be unique to this area. No one else can match the sound system, nor the lighting system.”
The facility’s first bull-riding event will be held on May 23 with more than 100 entries. “This is my first time that I’ve had the opportunity to put my two loves together, and that’s casinos and bull riding,” Smith said. “There’s no other casino in this area and none that I’m aware of in Oklahoma, currently, that is doing any bull functions.”
The original Bordertown Casino was closed in 2013 and replaced by the nearby Indigo Sky Casino. In September 2014 the tribe announced plans to renovate the old Bordertown Casino.
Glenna Wallace, Eastern Shawnee Tribe chief, said the casino and arena will provide 100-150 new jobs. “The building is the same building that we had before. We’ve really done very little as far as changing the way the building was laid out. We have just repurposed it,” she said.
Meanwhile, due west from Wyandotte in the Oklahoma panhandle, the Shawnee Tribe has applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take into trust land it owns near Guymon for a Golden Mesa Casino. Tribal leaders said the casino could add 175 new jobs, generate $3.7 million in annual payroll for the local economy and help promote tourism to the Oklahoma panhandle. If the BIA approves the application, construction could start in late 2016.
Guymon City Manager Kimberly Meek said, “No one had any inkling that they were considering it. We did not know the land had been purchased and we were just as surprised as everyone else.” She said the proposed casino land is not within the city’s jurisdiction.
A group called Panhandle Citizens for Truth in Gaming, wants to mobilize Guymon-area residents to oppose the proposed casino. Group member Gus Blackwell said, “There is a two month window where the Bureau of Indian Affairs takes public comments to say do you want this or do you not want this. I am counting on that two-month window for people in the Guymon area, Texas County and the surrounding area to look at the effects of casinos and say no, that is not something we want here.”
Group member Jeremiah Mallard added, “The target demographic they typically go after is typically the lowest income bracket. They are not the people who can afford to go and lose that money. They are not the kind of people who have been educated or may have the kind of self-control to be in some kind of casino like that.”
