The Trib talks about casinos and sports betting both looking for legalization from the Lege this year. It says the two are operating on parallel tracks and may even conflict with one another, if/when push comes to shove.
Strangely, it doesn't mention one headwind casinos could face.
Oklahoma.
Specifically, Oklahoma Indians. Living not too far from Winstar, and not real far from the Choctaw site in Durant, and having been by both the Kiowa and Apache casinos across the river from Wichita Falls, there's a lot of gold in them thar casinos that the Oklahoma tribes don't want to lose. The furthest west casinos aren't real far from Lubbock or Amarillo, and the furthest east not too far from Texarkana, so North Texas is blanketed. In addition, Far West Texas/Trans-Pecos can hit the Mescalaro casino near Ruidoso, and there's some Indian and other gaming in Louisiana, not really far away.
That said, the Chickasaws, owners of WinStar and many of the others closest to Texas, do also own Lone Star Park in Arlington, and are amenable to casino gambling in Texas if one of the casino sites .... could be wrapped with the racetrack. Feb. 3, the tribe indicated its support for the Sands (Sheldon Adelman family) and its casino push. Fort Worth Rep. Charlie Geren has parlayed that into a push to put casinos before the Texas public on a constitutional amendment vote. Geren's bill is interesting in other ways.
If I were a betting man (heh, heh), I'd offer 2-1 against sports betting (which isn't that bad, given it's Tex-ass), but still 5-1 or more against casinos. Kuff, reading the same story yesterday, semi-hangs his hat on the possibility of Lois Cockwhore (thanks, Brains) filing a gambling bill in the Senate. Per the Trib piece that's for sports betting, not casinos.
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