An entrance to The Venetian Las Vegas is viewed on May 17, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Don’t let the headline fool you. Casinos are still illegal in Texas. Or, at least the versions made famous by Las Vegas are illegal in Texas. But that isn’t stopping a few interested parties from pushing for change should the Lone Star State ever take the Sin City leap.
A report from the Dallas Morning News recently discussed the groups working behind the scenes to prepare for the one-day eventuality that Texas allows statewide gambling. The DMN identified Las Vegas Sands Corp, the Chickasaw Gaming Commission and the Choctaw Gaming Commission as the three groups most interested in a potential Las Vegas-style casino in Dallas-Fort Worth.
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If you’re a baseball fan and recognize that last one, it’s because Choctaw Casinos & Rights purchased and renamed Globe Life Field to Choctaw Stadium in 2021 and remain business partners with the Texas Rangers MLB team. After all, Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma is only 90 minutes north of Dallas, making it easy to connect the two regions.
There are recognizable games over at Kickapoo Lucky Eagle, including themed games related to Wheel of Fortune, The Wizard of Oz, Willie Nelson, and much more.
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Now, yes, Texas does have three active casinos on Native American reservations: Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas’ Naskila Casino in Livingston; the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas’ Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel in Eagle Pass; and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo’s, or the Tigua’s, Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso. However, those are Class 2 casinos that limit games to slot machines that “operate on a mechanism based on bingo, a game that is legal in Texas,” the DMN writes. A future Las Vegas-style resort would be a Class 3 casino, offering games such as blackjack and table poker, in addition to slot machines.
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There is no timeline for when a future Las Vegas-style casino would arrive in Texas, let alone the DFW, but here’s what to know about the three interested parties:
US-Israeli co-founder of casino and resort operator Las Vegas Sands Miriam Adelson speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s expansion of Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore on July 15, 2025.
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Las Vegas Sands Corp
Las Vegas Sands Corp. owes its name to the historic Sands Hotel and Casino, which was open from 1952 to 1996 and had ties to gangster Meyer Lansky, billionaire Howard Hughes and singer Frank Sinatra. The site was demolished and transformed into The Venetian in 1999, before being sold in 2022, but its former ownership company still carries the Sands legacy as a casino and resort.
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Sands already owns 100 acres of land near the old Cowboys Stadium in Irving, positioning the company for North Texas expansion.
“There is nowhere else in the U.S. we would ever go,” Andy Abboud, senior vice president of government relations for Sands Corp., says in the DMN article.
While still headquartered in Las Vegas, Sands Corp. is owned by the Adelson family and currently operates five casinos in Macau and another in Singapore. A Dallas casino would be the company’s first U.S.-based resort since the sale of the Venetian.
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Chickasaw Gaming Commission
The Chickasaw Nation is made up of the descendants of Chickasaw people from Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee who were moved to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. Today, the Chickasaw Reservation is in southern central Oklahoma along the Texas border, with a total population of over 300,000, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Chickasaw Gaming Commission operates 24 casinos as of 2025 and paid almost $51 million in exclusivity fees to Oklahoma.
“I’d put our industry’s innovation and efficiency up against anyone,” Matthew L. Morgan, special envoy for the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association, said to the DMN.
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Cars are parked at the Choctaw Durant Casino Resort, part of the Choctaw Nation gaming industry, in Durant, Oklahoma on November 30, 2015.
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Choctaw Gaming Commission
The Choctaw Nation has ties to Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee, but the reservation now sits in southeastern Oklahoma, next to the Chickasaw Nation. Today, it is recognized as the third-largest Indian nation in the U.S. with over 225,000 tribal members.
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The Choctaw operates 23 casinos as of 2025 and paid more than $81 million in exclusivity fees to Oklahoma. Given the tribes existing ties to the DFW, we can only imagine what success they might have in North Texas.
“We’re more familiar with the Texas market than we are any other market,” Choctaw Chief Gary Batton said to the DMN. “We’ve been planning and been prepared for this for years.”