Texas gaming supplier giving millions to Oklahoma casinos

A Texas gaming machine supplier has given more than $50 million to help Oklahoma tribes finance casino expansions. <br><br>Multimedia Games Inc., a supplier of more than 5,000 gaming machines to 28 American

Sunday, March 7th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A Texas gaming machine supplier has given more than $50 million to help Oklahoma tribes finance casino expansions.

Multimedia Games Inc., a supplier of more than 5,000 gaming machines to 28 American Indian tribes in Oklahoma, has given $50.3 million to Oklahoma tribes to help with construction costs of new casinos.

The arrangement will increase Multimedia Games' dependence on the Oklahoma tribal gambling industry, The Oklahoman reported in Sunday's editions.

Its financing method is similar to a formula used with the Chickasaw Nation, which built the WinStar casino last year along Interstate 35 near the Texas state line.

Multimedia officials refused to disclose which tribes they were working with or where the new casinos would be built, but tribal gaming officials confirmed the gaming suppliers' role in new casino construction.

Multimedia advanced an undisclosed amount of money for construction, and in return the Chickasaw Nation allotted 80 percent of the casino's gaming space to Multimedia machines.

As a result, the Austin, Texas-based company owns about 800 of that casino's 1,000 machines and receives an undisclosed percentage of revenue from them.

Multimedia is advancing construction money to the Peoria Tribe for a 52,000-square-foot casino near Interstate 44 at Miami, Okla. The casino will have at least 600 machines and employ at least 200 when it opens by Labor Day, casino general manager Steve Bashore said.

The casino also will feature a 1,800-seat event center and a restaurant, Bashore said.

Multimedia is also financing two new casinos for the Osage Nation _ one at Sand Springs, the other in North Tulsa, tribe spokeswoman Julia Lookout said.

Previous reports have placed the combined cost at $9 million, with about 500 games in each casino.

Near McLoud, Multimedia financed two portable buildings that doubled the Kickapoo casino's size to about 400 machines, former tribe chairman Tony Salazar said.

Whether that project counts among Multimedia's seven listed agreements is unclear, because the Kickapoo project has been finished for almost a year.

Salazar said the tribe plans another expansion but hasn't picked a company to finance it.