WinStar Nation Closer to Owning Lone Star Park Poker-friendly Indians coming to Texas
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.
TD says:
September 18th, 2009 at 9:44pm
Unless they are buying to make sure it never holds poker so as to keep DFW’s money in that tax haven that is Chickasaw nation.
adam says:
September 20th, 2009 at 1:28am
i agree td i think they are buying just to make sure it will never be a casino
DanM says:
September 20th, 2009 at 1:48am
I might agree that that’s their Plan B … but their plan A would be to turn it into a casino resort.
They also bought a horse track in Oklahoma City (Remington Park) for more than $80 million. They also signed on as the title sponsor (the Winstar 400) of an event at Texas Motor Speedway.
The Chickasaws are currently trying to buy up casino property outside the United States as well, I’m hearing. They want to be major players … and the last thing they’d want is for us to pass some semblance of gambling in Texas that would kill one of their properties … unless, of course, they owned it.
SR22 says:
February 18th, 2010 at 1:46pm
If gambling ever passed that would allow them to build a casino at the Lone Star track, they could easily turn this race track into a far bigger and better casino than Winstar. The money they had to invest would pale in comparison to what this place would be cable of making. The type hotel and casino that could be constructed on this huge property. Sits just outside of downtown Dallas and next to Nokia live.