Happy Town Tip Tuesday! This month's Featured Town is Terral, OK. Terral is a town of almost 400 people and was founded...
Posted by Chickasaw Country on Tuesday, December 8, 2015

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Land Acquisitions | Openings & Closings

Chickasaw Nation breaks ground on $10M casino by Texas border

Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Chickasaw Nation gaming empire continues to grow.

The tribe just broke ground on a $10 million casino in Terral, Oklahoma, KFDX reports. The town is rather small but it's less than 2 miles from the border with Texas, an important gaming market.

"We're hoping they'll bring business in town and they'll be employees hired from not only from here but from other towns as well," Terral Mayor Vicente Villarreal told the station.

The 36,000-square-foot facility is going up on a parcel that was placed into trust on January 19, on the last full day of the Obama administration. A deed filed in Jefferson County bears the signatures of Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby and Eddie Streeter, a regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Generally, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act bars casinos on land placed in trust after 1988. But an exception in Section 20 of the law allows gaming on properties located within the boundaries a former reservation in Oklahoma.

The Chickasaws have qualified for the exception repeatedly, enabling them to quickly expand their gaming empire -- back in 2003, Indianz.Com counted 11 facilities on newly acquired lands. The tribe now operates more casinos than any other in Oklahoma or the United States.

The new Trump administration has erected a new hurdle for tribes seeking to acquire land away from existing reservations. These land-into-trust applications must be reviewed by political appointees in Washington, D.C., according to an April 6 memo first posted on the influential Turtle Talk blog.

The Chickasaw Nation, in contrast, won approval at the regional level. The new casino will open sometime in 2018, KFDX reported.

According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Terral was established on land that was previously owned by a Chickasaw citizen.

Read More on the Story:
$10 Million Casino Coming to Terral (Texomas Homepage 5/12)