Whether it’s a hedge on their part or a sign of things to come … Global Gaming became the “stalking horse bidder” for Lone Star Park yesterday … meaning the Oklahoma Chickasaws have made a $2.7 million deposit (10 percent of their opening bid) toward their serious intent to step across the border and have a hand in the future of Texas gambling.

Should a higher qualified bidder enter the picture, the property will be auctioned off in New York on Oct 7.

Global Gaming LSP, LLC is owned by the Chickasaw Nation, which owns the WinStar World Casino — site of the grandest poker room in the southwest, one patronized almost exclusively by Texans. A week-and-a-half ago the WWC celebrated the grand opening of their new hotel and expanded casino floor, now the 5th 3rd one of the largest in the world.

Lone Star Park, meanwhile, is the beautiful but bankrupt racetrack between Dallas and Fort Worth … a site that would’ve become home to one of the first fully legal Texas poker rooms had HB 222 passed.

In that special-interest political fight earlier this year, Texas poker and horse racing interests joined forces, but ultimately were defeated by a loose-knit alliance of Chickasaws, Choctaws, and radical Christians. Should Global Gaming’s purchase of Lone Star Park go through, however, then one of our strongest opponents would effectively defect to the side that wants to see bigger and better poker in Texas.

* Third is my number, btw, based on Business Week data, despite WinStar’s claim that they are just 5th.

At 110,000 square feet, the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Okla., will have the same amount of gaming space as Wynn Las Vegas, and slightly more than Wynn Macao.

Check it out:

“Texas hold’em / Ain’t nobody foldin’!” Rockin’!

We all know where that came from, of course:

Ship It!
Texas money headed to Oklahoma

Details on the expansion project (including the number of jobs it will create) here.

The Choctaw poker room will expand from 18 tables to 30, making it the same size as the Mirage and Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas (and slightly bigger than the Wynn). Still nowhere close, though, to WinStar’s 46.

Speaking of WinStar — we’ll say it again, the third-friggin-biggest casino in the world! — Pokerhag (“A grandma who plays poker”) has a good, related post about how difficult it is to find a non-Texas license plate in their parking lot, and what that means in terms of jobs and the economy:

http://pokerhag.blogspot.com/2009/07/texas-is-missing-boat-on-legalized.html

WinStar (aka the Chickasaw Nation) meanwhile, is blowing up … in addition to the 18 casinos they already run and the hotels they are opening up, they are looking bail out struggling horse tracks, and even expand into other countries … including, plausibly, Texas. The casino tribe just bought Remington Park (thanks to its bankruptcy) in Oklahoma City … and perhaps just to hedge their bets should Texas lawmakers ever change course, are making a similar play for Lone Star Park, the (beautiful but unprofitable) horse track between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Hmm, not sure how to take that. WinStar didn’t expand their poker room until after our legalize-poker efforts were defeated in 2007 (HB-3186) … and I hear we gave their poker staff a bit of a scare this year when we got even closer (HB-222) — in part with a move that connected Texas-based poker efforts to Lone Star Park. I guess this is their way of saying, hey, not so fast … if you get poker in Texas, it’s gonna be Chickasaw Poker!

OK, sorry for the semi-rambly post, but it just occurs to me, with that bitchin’ vid, that if you look at the biggest casino realms in the world, in 2010 you’ll be talking about, in order:

1. Las Vegas
2. Macau
3. Atlantic City
4. Oklahoma just barely north of the Texas border

BTW, check out just how “into” Texas WinStar really is … you know, peninsula-wise:

(via ThePokerAtlas)