Passage of Question 712 on Nov. 2 in Oklahoma could expand American Indian gaming business there just as some area casinos are expanding their facilities.
“We’re moving with the times with 712 passing. It will allow us to have a compact with the state of Oklahoma for 15 years,” said Janie Dillard, executive director of gaming for the Choctaw Nation. “That’s going to move us into a new age of gaming. It’s just more feasible now for us to go into the casino-type games and off-track betting.”
Once the federal Department of the Interior approves the compact between the tribes and the state that “new age” will start. Tournament-style blackjack at Choctaw casinos will take the place of bingo under the new compact between the tribes with gaming and the state of Oklahoma.
Using chips, blackjack players will ante up and bet against each other without the “house bank” of money that supplements the pot in Vegas-style play.
The tribe wants to begin blackjack as soon as the compact is given the OK, probably no earlier than spring 2005, according to Paula Penz, commissioner on the Choctaw Nation Gaming Commission.
Lawyers for the Choctaw Nation believe poker also may fall under the category of games of skill that are permitted under the compact, but blackjack remains the only game certain to be allowed under the agreement at this time, Dillard said.
Blackjack might fill the void created by the absence of bingo. The Choctaw Nation had seen returns and participation in bingo games decline by more than 50 percent in the months prior to its suspension in September 2003, according to Dillard.
With the expansion of its casino in Pocola, the tribe originally had planned to bring back bingo. Now the space in the new 74,000 square-foot facility previously reserved for the game will be devoted to an even larger off-track betting and “high-stakes” areas, Dillard said.
A performance stage that was to share space with the bingo operation will now be on the casino floor, visible to players but without any dedicated seating. The $15.4 million expanded casino should open for business in mid-December.
Dillard declined to give a firm opening date, saying some construction still is ongoing. Other than dropping bingo, the rest of the plans for the expansion are the same as they were when the project started.
The plans call for 200-seat buffet restaurant and a 24-hour snack bar as well as 1,000 gaming machines. Blackjack games at the casino may be up and running before the slot machines are though.
Three types of machine are allowed under the new compact — amusement, skill and instant bingo machines — and they will have to be custom-made, Dillard said.
Before they can be used in an Oklahoma casino, the machines will have to be tested in a gaming laboratory to make sure they meet the new criteria under the compact. That means it may be next summer or fall before players can use them in the casinos.
“It should be a better playing machine than we have now, giving us more information off the machine such as its history, plays on the machine and better player tracking,” Dillard said. “Many things we can offer to our customers by having a better machine.”
The payouts, giving players a card or ticket that can be turned in for cash or prizes, will be the same If the transition goes according to plan, a player will one day be able to take that ticket and use the credits they’ve won on another slot machine in the same casino, Dillard said.
At Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, the Choctaw Nation plans to add 250 machines to the off-track betting operations and live horseracing already there.
That’s another change the new compact allows.
No card games will be offered at the track. The tribe will take 65 percent of the adjusted gross revenue from the track’s business. What’s left will be divided with the state of Oklahoma and its commissions receiving 19 percent. Purses, breed and horsemen’s associations will share the remainder, Penz said.
She defined adjusted gross revenue as “wins minus payouts” or what the gaming operations take in after subtracting what the players win. On a graduated scale, the state of Oklahoma will take 4 to 6 percent from the adjusted gross revenue from the casinos as well. Of the state’s share, 12 percent will go into scholarships for higher learning in the state and the remainder toward per-pupil spending in public schools, Penz said.
Dillard isn’t worried about the games at BRD competing with the casino or the state lottery that passed in Oklahoma on Nov. 2, too.
“All it will do is help more,” she said. “I think it will (heighten interest in gaming). It’ll help our travel plazas. We’ll be able to sell lottery tickets in our travel plazas now.”
In eastern Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation soon will be competing with expanded gaming operations run by the Cherokee Nation, too. By the end of the year, the Cherokee Nation will open a 6,000 square-foot temporary facility near the footprint for a permanent building that will house a casino in Sallisaw, said Mike Miller, Cherokee Nation communications director.
Cherokee Nation Enterprises plans for the casino in that city to be complete sometime in 2005, just off Interstate 40 at the northwest corner of U.S. 59 and I-40.
With 20,000 square feet, 400 electronic games and additional space for card games, Cherokee Nation should be a more competitive player in the Oklahoma gaming industry.