Kickapoo Casino
- Kickapoo Casino Shawnee
- Kickapoo Casino Hours
- When Will Kickapoo Casino Reopen
- Kickapoo Casino Eagle Pass Texas
EAGLE PASS - Amid acres of colored, flashing electronic games, a few hundred mask-wearing VIP players tested their luck Wednesday as the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino reopened after a six-month shutdown caused by the pandemic.
Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel Texas has the BEST POKER ROOM in Texas! Play our LIVE ACTION POKER games daily, and go all in at our thrilling TEXAS HOLD ‘EM TOURNAMENTS! Get ready for some hot dauber action in live sessions every Wednesday – Sunday! With a stay at Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel in Eagle Pass, you'll be 0.1 mi (0.1 km) from Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino and 8.9 mi (14.4 km) from Mall de las Aguilas. This casino love hotel is 9.7 mi (15.6 km) from Maverick County Lake and 9.7 mi (15.6 km) from Fort Duncan Museum. Popular Hotel Amenities and Features.
At 11 a.m., the huge darkened screen outside the entrance suddenly came to life, flashing “Now Open” in bright yellow and orange, as the invited players began arriving.
Relax and enjoy a fresh new hotel experience at the full service destination hotel Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Hotel awarding hotel and casino guests’ unparalleled luxury and comfort. Reserve your stay with us and select from 249 well-appointed spacious suites and guest rooms with surrounding views of the Rio Grande connected to Kickapoo Lucky Eagle. We do NOT currently have any offers for Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel. However, if you have NOT played at Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel for 2 years or more and typically play at the levels outlined below, the URComped team will try our best to help you get COMPED by connecting you directly with an on property host. Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, Eagle Pass, Texas. 125,927 likes 1,043 talking about this 266,295 were here. Welcome to the official page of Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel in Eagle Pass, TX.
Limited at 25 percent capacity, the peculiar quiet on the sprawling gaming floor was soon interrupted twice in short order with a siren signaling that someone had just hit a jackpot.
That someone was Emma Gonzalez of Edinburg, who was at a loss to explain her sudden good fortune.
“I have no idea. The screen just exploded in front of me. It says jackpot!” exclaimed Gonzalez, who, within 15 minutes won two $10,000 jackpots playing on Da Ji Da Li machines.
Gonzalez, who just finished writing a book about musician Little Joe of Familia fame, said she had no particular strategy or particular plans for the money.
“We haven’t been out since the COVID. We took a gamble coming here. We’re not going to leave early,” her husband, Arnie Gonzalez, said.
The state’s only legal casino, the Lucky Eagle offers more than 3,300 electronic gaming devices, poker games and bingo on a 117,000-square-foot gaming floor. It closed March 19 at the onset of the pandemic, leaving thousands of Texas gamers in the lurch.
In normal times, the 249-room hotel is booked solid, tour buses from San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley arrive daily, and players sometimes have to wait for favored games.
Owned by the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe, the casino paid out jackpots last year worth $104 million.
Casinos in Louisiana and Las Vegas also closed in March, but all had reopened by early June, with a host of new safety measures, many of which were ignored by visitors.
In East Texas, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe reopened its Naskila Gaming hall earlier this month, but its future remains shaky. The tribe is embroiled in a long-running legal fight with the state to stay open.
Maverick County and Eagle Pass have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus, prompting operators of the Lucky Eagle to take a conservative approach to reopening, general manager Chris McClain said.
“We’re probably one of the last casinos in the country to open. We want to make sure that when the guests get here, they have a great experience and are safe,” he said.
Among those stopping by Wednesday afternoon were Maverick County Judge David Saucedo and Eagle Pass Mayor Luis Sifuentes. They came not to play, but to inspect the casino’s safety precautions, which got their approval.
To make sure that guests observe proper social distancing, about half the gaming machines have been disabled, and many of the chairs were removed.
In addition, smoking is now prohibited in the casino.
Arriving guests are required to wear masks and get their temperature taken at the entrance. Plastic barriers are in place at the bar and other areas.
“We’ll be open 24 hours, and overnight we’ll be closing parts of the casino, as we empty the machines. We’ll also do a deep clean of each of those zones,” McClain said.
The casino did not publicly advertise its Wednesday soft opening. As far as the public knows, the official reopening will be Thursday.
Its early days
The Lucky Eagle has come a long way since it began offering gaming in 1996 in cramped portable buildings, long since demolished.
It has been expanded and modernized, and now compares to casinos on Indian reservations in surrounding states.
Along the way it has lifted the Kickapoos from abject poverty as migrant farm workers to prosperity on their 126-acre reservation on the Rio Grande.
The casino is restricted to Class II gambling, one notch below Las Vegas-style gaming.
The tribe has used its gaming wealth to build homes for tribal members, as well as numerous modern tribal buildings. The casino also provides jobs and healthcare for tribal members.
While the casino does not divulge much financial or business information, in recent years it has drawn more than 3 million visitors, according to one official.
On Wednesday afternoon, the vast darkened interior seemed almost deserted, with just a few hundred people inside.
In pre-pandemic times, a thousand or more players would try their luck at the seductive beeping machines with names like “Double the Devil,” “Rumble in the Jungle,” “Playboy Platinum” and “Mega Meltdown.”
The ‘happy place’
/images.trvl-media.com/hotels/7000000/6480000/6476900/6476804/ead4fb11_y.jpg "Kickapoo Casino")
Among the early arrivals Wednesday were Ray and Bertha Suarez of Del Rio, recipients of VIP invitations, who, since the Lucky Eagle’s closure, had been going to Oklahoma to gamble.
“It’s nice. It’s close. We can come in the morning and go home. It’s a big casino and we win. We win big,” Bertha said.
“It’s true,” chimed in her husband. “I won $15,000 betting 80 cents.”
Bertha slid $100 into a machine and began to hit the play button on a Loteria game as familiar lottery card images of skulls, scorpions and cactus began flashing across the screen.
“I have a limit of $50 a machine. If it doesn’t pay, I get out,” she said.
In the far distance of the cavernous interior, an emphatic human voice rose above the soft rock and the electronic machine noises.
“Come on! Come on! Let’s Go!,” exclaimed Bibi Cates, 70, of Mountain Home, as she rolled through 50 free plays on a machine that flashed large gold coins.
Cates, who works at the Kerrville State Hospital, had come with her daughter Angela, 50, and was on a roll. The screen showed her $620 ahead.
“We never expect to win. When we do it’s a blessing. Thank you Baby Jesus,” she said.
For Cates, the blessed day had finally come. The Lucky Eagle was open again, and, as she put it, she was “killing this machine.”
“We’ve been waiting for this reopening forever. We’ve had withdrawals. This is my happy place,” she said.
Southern Kickapoo people building a winter house in Nacimiento, Coahuila, Mexico, 2008 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 960 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| United States (Texas) | |
| Languages | |
| English, Kickapoo[1] | |
| Religion | |
| traditional tribal religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Kickapoo people and Fox, Sauk, and Shawnee people[2] |
| Tribe | Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| State | Texas |
| County | Maverick |
| Headquarters | Rosita South |
| Government | |
| • Body | Tribal Council |
| • Chairman | Estavio Elizondo |
| • Secretary | David Valdez |
| • Treasurer | David Treviño |
| Population | |
| • Total | 416 |
| Website | kickapootexas.org |
Kickapoo Casino Shawnee
The Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, based in Eagle Pass, is a federally recognized tribe that uses revenue from its gaming and business operations to provide housing, education and social services to its members. The tribe is a model for other Native American tribes seeking to lift its members out of poverty, because they were living under the international bridge over the Rio Grande as recently as the 1980s.[2]
Kickapoo Casino Hours
Reservation[edit]
The Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Texas is located at 28°36′37″N100°26′19″W / 28.61028°N 100.43861°W on the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border in western Maverick County, just south of the city of Eagle Pass, as part of the community of Rosita South. It has a land area of 0.4799 square kilometres (118.6 acres). There are currently 960 tribal members living on the Eagle Pass reservation and tribal lands in Nacimiento, Mexico, where the tribe often holds ceremonies. Tribal members must be at least one-fourth Kickapoo.
Government[edit]
The Texas Kickapoos adopted their Constitution in 1989. They are governed by the Traditional Council, made up of five members elected by secret ballot. The current Council Chairman is Estavio Elizondo Sr., Menikapah.[5]
Language[edit]
The Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas members are related ethnically to the Fox, Sauk and Shawnee tribes. Many tribal members speak English, Spanish and the Kickapoo language, which is a Fox language and part of the Algonquian language family.[1] They also use Kickapoo whistled speech.
Economic development[edit]
Tribal enterprises include the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel, which provides Class II gaming, the Lucky Eagle Convenience Store, Kickapoo Empire, which is an 8A business, a pecan farm, ranches located in both the U.S. and Mexico, a gas station in Múzquiz, Coahuila Mexico with PEMEX, and other businesses in Maverick County. Tribal members receive educational, housing, wellness and other social services from the tribe. [6]
History[edit]
The Texas Kickapoo's history is intertwined with that of Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas, the Tribe settled in Texas in the early 1800s at the invitation of the Spanish government, which was hoping native tribes would provide a buffer against American settlement in the region. By 1839, however, most Kickapoos had left Texas for Mexico or Indian Territory as a treaty proposed by Sam Houston was never ratified. The Tribe was granted land in Nacimiento, Coahuila, by the Mexican government in 1852. Tribal members returned to Texas periodically and over the years became seasonal migrant farmers in the U.S. The Tribe was officially recognized by the Texas Indian Commission under Senate Bill 168, 65th Legislature, Regular Session, in 1977. In 1982, they were recognized as an official sub-group of the Oklahoma Kickapoo Indian Tribe, enabling them to acquire their own reservation, under control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs instead of the state of Texas. In 1985 the tribe was granted a government to government relationship with the federal government which granted them the 118 acres in Eagle Pass they occupy today and have maintained the relationship continuously.
When Will Kickapoo Casino Reopen
Notes[edit]
- ^ ab'Kickapoo.'Ethnologue. Retrieved 12 Sept 2013.
- ^ abPriztker 420
- ^'Tribal Council'. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
- ^2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. 'My Tribal Area'. United States Census Bureau.
- ^'Tribal Directory.'National Congress of American Indians. Retrieved 25 Oct 2017.
- ^'Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino.' Retrieved 7 Nov 2017.
References[edit]
- Miller, Tom. On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier. 2000. ISBN978-0595143344.
- Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN978-0-19-513877-1
External links[edit]
- Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, official website
- Kickapoo Indians, Texas State Historical Association