Oklahomans may be able to gamble on online bingo-based casino games by mid-2025 within the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma‘s land. That reservation encompasses nearly 11,000 square miles is in the southeastern portion of the state.
The tribe is already moving forward on those plans, contracting with suppliers like GeoComply, White Hat Gaming, and Shape Games to provide the necessary technologies.
On Oct. 8, Chris Scrivner — executive director of gaming and hospitality for the Choctaw Nation — said in GeoComply’s announcement:
We’re excited to partner with GeoComply for our Class II mobile gaming project. Their PinPoint technology is a proven on-premise geofencing solution that provides us with reliability and compliance so we can offer mobile gaming to our patrons with full confidence. This initiative opens the door for us to engage our customers in new ways.
“Class II” refers to raffles and bingo-based games, as opposed to Class III gaming, which is full-scale casino gambling. However, Class II also includes electronic bingo machines, which resemble slots even though they use bingo mathematics to determine the outcomes.
Oklahoma’s retail casinos include both Class II and Class III games, although there are some limitations on the latter. Introducing Class II on-reservation online gambling may be a stepping stone for the Choctaw tribe. It may someday become possible for them and other Oklahoma tribes to offer Class III online gambling statewide, similar to how the Seminole Tribe of Florida provides online sports betting to Floridians through Hard Rock Bet. Through recent changes to its compacting rules, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has implicitly endorsed the Florida model, which holds that bets legally “take place” on tribal land as long as that’s where the servers are.
Choctaw Nation is Eager to Embrace Online Gaming
The new project will be Choctaw Nation’s first foray into real-money online gambling. However, the tribe previously laid the groundwork for such an effort by creating a free-to-play online slot app that launched in March 2022.
Choctaw Slots also offered 100 casino games—including blackjack, bingo, and video poker—beyond the reservation borders, albeit without real money at stake.
In 2022, Wendy Carter, executive director of gaming marketing at Choctaw Casino & Resort – Durant, said:
Choctaw Casinos & Resorts is seizing the opportunity to enhance the overall gaming experience beyond Southeastern Oklahoma as users can play Choctaw Slots on any device and from anywhere around the world.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s tribes provide real-money gambling to 4 million Sooners through state gaming compacts. Because of those agreements, the state houses 139 tribal casinos and just two commercial gaming facilities. According to the American Gaming Association (AGA), tribal casinos generated $4.36 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2016.
By contrast, 2023 GGR from the state’s two commercial gaming properties was just $151.4 million.
Oklahoma On-Reservation iGaming
Once the Choctaw Nation’s online casino app is live, bettors will be able to play Class II games anywhere on the tribe’s land.
Those games look like slots, but the reels are only for show. Gamblers will functionally be playing bingo against one another to determine whose “spins” are winners.
While Oklahoma tribes offer both Class II and Class III games at their land-based casinos, the Choctaw Nation is only currently looking to launch Class II games. Bonus is seeking clarification on that decision, but the reason is likely that Class III gaming is subject to the conditions of the tribe’s compact with the state, while Class II gaming doesn’t have the same restrictions.
Tribes are also the primary regulators of Class II games. For the purposes of the upcoming app, the Choctaw Nation Gaming Commission (CNGC) is already in place.
The CNGC site explains:
The Commission conducts oversight to ensure compliance with Tribal, Federal, and State laws and regulations.
In states with commercial online casino operators, state gaming regulators ultimately govern those US online casinos.