Winstar World Casino in Thackerville launching mobile gambling app
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As the debate over sports betting heats up in Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation is rolling the dice on a different type of gambling.
The southern Oklahoma tribe is launching a mobile gaming app that will take and pay out real money, a change from phone games where no cash changes hands. It will only work at the Winstar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, the tribe’s largest gaming hub near the Oklahoma-Texas line.
Even with that limitation, the new app is significant, because most forms of online wagering are not yet legal in Oklahoma. It could give the Chickasaw Nation an early foothold in the fast-growing mobile gaming world, especially if the app eventually expands to the tribe’s other casinos or across its reservation, which stretches from the Red River to the outskirts of Norman.
“This is absolutely new to us,” said Scott Emerson, under secretary for operations at the Chickasaw Nation’s Department of Commerce.
While mobile gaming has already taken hold in some states, that’s not the case in Oklahoma. Gov. Kevin Stitt expressed support last month for mobile sports betting, but said he wants the state to license companies, not tribal nations, to offer it. His proposal generated immediate controversy, because a longstanding agreement gives tribes exclusive gaming rights in exchange for paying the state millions of dollars in monthly fees. Stitt has criticized those payments as too low.
The Chickasaw Nation’s app will operate outside of that agreement. Federal law allows tribal nations to offer games that are bingo at their core without state approval or oversight. In bingo games, people play against a pool of other players. Vegas-style machines, which are covered by the state-tribal gaming agreement, use random numbers. Most casinos in Oklahoma have both types of games.
How the new Winstar app will work — and how the Chickasaw Nation got the green light to launch it
Federal regulators gave the Chickasaw Nation a preliminary green light to offer bingo games on a new platform — phones — a year ago. They have since given similar approvals to the Muscogee and Choctaw nations in eastern Oklahoma. The Eastern Shawnee Tribe near Wyandotte and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes in Anadarko also have said they are considering mobile gaming.
The Winstar app will offer three of its popular electronic games, just on someone’s mobile device rather than a machine on the casino floor.
“This is about creating optionality for them,” Emerson said.
To launch the app, the tribe partnered with Aristocrat Leisure Limited, an Australian firm that makes slot machines and is expanding into mobile gaming. Bill Lance, the Chickasaw Nation’s secretary of state, recently joined Aristocrat’s board of directors.
A spokeswoman for the firm did not return a message to comment about the launch plans for the app.
Emerson said the app currently is available to a small group of people who were invited to join. It will be released and advertised more widely throughout Winstar, which the tribe touts as the world’s largest casino, within the next month, he said.
Winstar attracts thousands of visitors every day, many traveling from the Dallas metro area or other parts of Texas.
A technology called geofencing will keep the new app from working outside of Winstar. It specifically will check whether people are on trust land at Winstar, a type of land where tribes can conduct gaming under federal law.
Expanding outside Winstar may be in the cards eventually, Emerson said, but the current focus is on creating an app that people like. Success will be measured by how many people play the app more than once, he said.
The legal landscape surrounding other forms of mobile betting also could change.
Sports betting is likely to be a top issue when the Legislature reconvenes in February.
Some lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully in recent years to add sports betting on to the state-tribal gaming agreement. Stitt’s proposal would allow tribes to accept in-person sports bets, and other operators to take online wagers. Tribal leaders have said they weren’t consulted ahead of time, and lawmakers also have questioned the governor’s suggestions.
Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.
