EAGLE PASS - Rising like a mirage between the Rio Grande and the impoverished Rosita Valley colonia, the new six-story Lucky Eagle Casino and Hotel on the tiny Kickapoo Indian Reservation draws gamblers from hundreds of miles.

Tour buses roll in from San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, bringing seniors and low-rollers to play bingo, poker and machine games. When the action heats up on weekends, the new 249-room hotel is often booked solid.

The expanded two-acre gaming area, with tinted doors to dim the sunlight, features 2,768 blinking, beeping machines. The casino comes replete with a large new poker room and five dining areas. Out front, two gleaming Lexus ES 350s linger seductively, awaiting lucky winners.

“This new area is incredible. This is right up there with the casinos I've been to in Phoenix and Albuquerque,” said Lorraine Babcock, 65, a retired nurse from San Antonio, who is a typical client.

“It's a nice day to spend away from home without spending a lot of money. I never lose more than $200,” said Babcock, who takes the bus to Eagle Pass. On the return trip she often hears others bragging about their winnings.

More Information About this series Texas' three Indian tribes have long sought casino gambling, but only the Kickapoos have been legally allowed to open a casino. Gambling has been a savior for other tribes.

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Opened in 1996, the casino has propelled the Kickapoos, now a tribe of 850, on a meteoric rise from abject poverty to prosperity on their small 125-acre slice of the border.

They were still landless farm workers 30 years ago, living part of the year in a wretched shanty town beneath the international bridge in Eagle Pass and the rest of the year on a reservation deep in Mexico.

But owning the only casino in Texas has changed their fortunes. The tribe is using gaming wealth to build dozens of new homes that make the once dreary reservation resemble a modern, middle-class subdivision today.

The casino also provides jobs, health care and housing to tribal members, as well as a stream of cash for ambitious capital projects.

“The old problems have gone away. Ninety percent of the tribe is employed,” said Tribal Chairman Juan Garza Jr., who spent parts of his youth in fruit orchards in Utah, and has led the tribe for 11 years.

The Kickapoos' glittering new casino, which the tribe self-financed at an undisclosed cost, makes them the envy of the state's two other federally recognized tribes, the Tiguas in El Paso and the Alabama-Coushattas in East Texas, both of which are legally prohibited from opening a casino.

Dozens of Indian tribes once called Texas home, but these three are the last to remain in the state, which in the 19th century made their removal or extermination official policy.

The three tribes all experienced debilitating poverty throughout the last century, and like hundreds of other Native American groups sought gambling riches to create jobs and develop modern housing. The Tiguas and Alabama-Coushattas also had opened casinos to rake in the bonanza of cash.

But more than a decade ago, the state forced both tribes to close their gambling halls because of legally binding promises they made when they received federal tribal recognition in 1987 to forego gambling.

Neither tribe gave up.

The Tiguas now operate two “entertainment centers” with hundreds of gaming machines, which the state says are illegal. The tribe is fighting a contempt motion over the issue in a long-running federal case.

The Alabama-Coushattas, who have been less confrontational, have a legislative offer on the table in Washington to drop all of their aboriginal claims to land and natural resources, as well as pending litigation against the federal government, in exchange for allowing a casino on their reservation.

The Kickapoos have no such problems. They were granted federal tribal recognition in 1983 with no strings attached, and the state cannot challenge their right to have a casino.

But hanging over them every two years is the threat of a legislative change that could bring other casinos, backed by gaming billionaires, to Texas with Las Vegas-style slots, roulette and card games that the Kickapoos cannot yet offer.

If that were to happen, the goose that lays their golden eggs would quickly fall ill.

“If they started building casinos in other areas, particularly San Antonio, which is our main market, we'd go bankrupt,” Garza said. “We're in a remote area. That's what we always worry about.”

A new frontier

With casinos proliferating in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana, Texas represents an irresistible new frontier, and some well-heeled companies have already made quiet moves in anticipation of liberalization of the gaming laws.

In 2010, Penn National Gaming bought a half interest in Sam Houston Race Park. A year later, the Chickasaw Nation, which operates 13 casinos in Oklahoma, acquired an interest in Lone Star Park, a race track near Fort Worth.

And last year, casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment bought a 75 percent interest in Retama Park outside of San Antonio. The three tracks would be ideal sites for gambling if Texas law changed.

Las Vegas gaming companies have also repeatedly expressed interest in Texas.

In the 2013 Legislature, the industry had high hopes for a bill sponsored by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas that would have put gambling to a public vote to overcome the longstanding constitutional prohibition.

The bill would have allowed eight large gambling resorts around the state, as well as slot machines on race tracks, and casinos on the Tigua and Alabama-Coushatta reservations.

But despite heavy lobbying by pro-casino interests, who talked it up as a way to create jobs, help the budget and capture billions of gambling dollars leaving Texas each year, the bill died quietly in committee.

“We couldn't get the votes in the Senate. We were three votes short. And if anyone can push a bill through, John can. He's a Baptist,” said Jack Pratt, 87, chairman of the Texas Gaming Association, an industry group backed by Las Vegas gambling interests.

Chief among them is Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire, with a personal net worth estimated by Forbes at $37 billion.

Pratt and some others think that despite this setback, eventually a political shift or a financial crisis will erode legislative opposition to gambling and that casinos will swiftly materialize in Texas.

“We have the five or six biggest gambling companies in the world that want to come in here, including Las Vegas Sands, Steve Wynn, MGM, Harris and two foreign companies, Genting and Melco, and that are the second-and third-largest gaming companies in the world,” he said.

“They want to be in Texas but they are getting the word back that with the current environment of the Republican Party, the chance of getting it done are slim to none,” said Pratt, a former casino owner.

But, he said, the big companies will be quick to turn their attention to Texas if the political climate changes.

“A few years down the road, the state will turn Democratic and we'll have gaming. The big casino companies think that will happen in 2016 or 2018. The pendulum swings pretty widely,” he added.

Others scoff at this sunny prediction, saying casinos are far from a sure thing in Texas, no matter how many times their backers try.

“We expect both Indian gambling and pitches for other casinos to be brought forward at the next session. This goes back 30 years,” said Rodger Weems of “Stop Predatory Gambling,” an anti-gambling coalition.

“They have been successful on the lottery, bingo and race tracks, and some charitable sweepstakes, but there has never been a successful effort on casinos. There is no great groundswell of public support for casinos in Texas,” he added.

If Attorney General Greg Abbott, an outspoken foe of gambling, becomes the next governor, few think the political situation will change. Chairman Garza, who keeps one eye on Austin during legislative sessions, is less optimistic.

“Every two years it comes out, the gaming issue, and I think eventually it will pass. We don't know when. Hopefully not soon,” he said.

Tribal lawyer Gloria Hernandez says the Kickapoos have in the past sought some form of protection from legislators from competing casinos.

“They have attached amendments to bills giving the tribe an alternative location to have a casino,” she said, but some question whether even this would be enough for the Kickapoos to succeed.

Special gaming rights

Since passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, federal law gives Indian tribes special gambling rights, and in 1996 the Kickapoos opened their first gaming operation in a primitive, pre-fabricated building on their tiny reservation.

The small casino and bingo hall provided tribal revenue and stable jobs, and helped break the cycle of migrant farm working. In 2004, the tribe opened a much larger casino and then last year completed the ambitious hotel and a casino expansion project.

The Kickapoos wouldn't disclose how much revenue is generated by the casino, or how much the casino and hotel cost to build. The IRS approved $22.6 million in economic development bonds for the Kickapoos under a program created through the federal stimulus act. But the tribe decided not to use the bond financing.

Money pouring into the casino has allowed the tribe to spend millions on various projects without borrowing a dime.

According to the 2013 yearbook of the National Indian Gaming Association, 246 tribes in 28 states own gambling operations that collectively generated $27 billion in revenues in 2012.

In New Mexico, Oklahoma and Louisiana alone, there are more than 140 Indian gaming facilities, ranging from travel centers with machines to full-fledge Class III casinos, according to Casino City's Indian Gaming Industry Report for 2013.

In Texas, the Kickapoos are reaping the rewards of their monopoly. Among the curious side effects has been a surge in tribal membership as Kickapoos from the Oklahoma branch are flocking to join their prosperous Texas brethren.

“When we started here, we were about 400 to 430, and now we're at 850,” said Garza of his growing tribe.

They have embarked on a home-building drive that has transformed the tiny reservation. A decade ago it resembled a colonia, but almost all of the old trailers and shanties with outhouses have been replaced by comfortable modern homes.

“You had as many as four generations living in the same house,” remembered tribal administrator Don Spaulding, who said that about 100 new homes will be built.

The tribe also is building a large clinic that will be open to the public, a community center with a gymnasium, and a government building that could easily serve a city of 20,000 people. Together the three structures encompass 110,000 square feet of new construction.

And, as they build and expand, the Kickapoos are trying to be good neighbors in this low-income, unincorporated corner of the county.

“We've put in several miles of fresh water lines, also sewer, and not just for the tribe. And we built a completely new sewer lift station that will service the whole community out here,” Spaulding said.

Down the road, he said, the tribe hopes to build a tribal school and justice center.

“We still move cautiously. We're looking at the school maybe two years out. We don't know what's going to happen with the Legislature. We are trying to branch out. We're exploring other avenues, but there is nothing that will match a casino,” Spaulding said.

One effort at diversification is a 16-pump gas station and convenience store being built on property the tribe owns just off El Indio Highway.

But the casino, with 700 employees, dwarfs everything else.

Casino action

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid-February, the staff at the casino's new Sage Steakhouse, easily the swankest eatery in Maverick County, prepared for an already sold-out Valentines Day dinner.

In a casino lobby of dark marble and gentle lighting, soft jazz set the mood as players trickled in, drawn like moths to the glittering gaming hall.

In the nearby poker room, local men at an oblong table tangled at Texas Hold 'em with $1 dollar chips at the only active game. On weekends, the dozen tables fill up for no-limit games when pots can reach $10,000 or higher.

During a recent tournament, the room could have been twice as large, said Robin Miller, the casino manager.

“We were full, plus we had 100 people standing at the front waiting,” she said.

On weekend nights, the gaming floor is so packed that people compete for machines.

“We get up to 75 to 80 percent occupancy on the machines, which from the guest perspective, makes it appear that every machine is full,” Miller said.

Out in the gaming area a smattering of players, mostly women, fed bills into brightly lit machines under the watchful eye of attendants in gold uniforms, quick to respond to a problem or question.

“We come a couple of times a month to relax and get away from the house. We work six days a week, breeding and selling dogs,” said Terry Sanders, 34, who comes with his wife from San Antonio.

“We liked it before and we really love it now,” he added, noting the improvements.

As far as having a strategy, Sanders, who had chosen the “Loteria Game” machine, said he simply “goes with his gut.”

“Wherever my gut tells me, I sit down, and it's been pretty good to me today,” he said.

jmaccormack@express-news.net