Legal Gambling & Poker in Texas to Return?

Gambling is playing a more important part than ever in various States' Governor races and towards balancing state budgets.

Candidates for Texas governor have received more than $2 million from gambling interests.

Perry has received $1.2 million from gambling interests; independent Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, $1 million; and Democrat Chris Bell, $3,000. Ironically, the most ardent supporter of expanded gambling, independent Kinky Friedman, has no donations tied to gambling interests.

Some contributors want to bring live casino gambling to the Lone Star State, while others fund gambling opponents, hoping to keep Texas gamblers crossing state lines.

Oklahoma's Winstar Casino is trying to draw Texans away from casinos in neighboring Shreveport Louisiana. The Chickasaw Nation, who owns Winstar Casino, gave Gov. Rick Perry, who does not support gambling in Texas, a $40,000 donation, according to campaign finance reports released this week.

Bell, Friedman and Strayhorn all agree that Texans are gambling but are leaving the state to do so, leaving state tax coffers dry. "We are sucking conservatively 2 billion dollars a year out of our Texas classrooms. They are going to Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and now Oklahoma," Strayhorn said. All three candidates favor some form of gambling in Texas.

But no matter who wins the governor's race, the gambling issue is likely to come up next year as legislators continue to look for money to pay for public education and expanded property tax cuts.

"I will continue to work (the issue). The state needs the money," said Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores, D-Palmview, who chairs the House Committee on Licensing and Administrative Procedures. Flores vowed last Thursday to introduce legislation next session that would let Texas voters decide whether to expand gambling in the state.

Gambling supporters hope the proliferation of casinos in northern Mexico, and in the southern regions of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Louisiana will generate support for an expansion of games in Texas. But sizable opposition to Texas casinos remains.

Two Texas American Indian tribes - the Tigua and Alabama Coushattas - hope to reopen tribal government casinos closed by the state several years ago.

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