In hard-luck
Montague County, slot-machine operators hit the jackpot
From
the outside, Dice’s Pizza and Subs looks like a
mom-and-pop delicatessen, perhaps a nice place to grab a
meatball sub or a slice of pepperoni pizza. The
low-slung brick building sits near a Dairy Queen along
the main drag in the small town of Nocona, Texas, just
south of the Oklahoma border. On one side of the
building is a mural featuring a village of homes nestled
in the foothills of a mountain. The scene looks vaguely
Mediterranean. Inside, the room is dark and smoky. There
are no shakers of Parmesan cheese or crushed red pepper.
No red-and-white checkered tablecloths. In fact, there
are no dining tables. These days, nobody visits Dice’s
to eat pizza or subs. They come here to gamble.
A few months ago, some local entrepreneurs converted
Dice’s into a makeshift casino of sorts. Although
gambling is still illegal in Texas, local law
enforcement agents have chosen to ignore the handful of
mini-casinos that have recently popped up here and there
throughout the surrounding area of Montague County,
roughly 900 square miles of small towns and farmland
northwest of Dallas. The police’s “don’t ask, don’t
tell” approach has given Dice’s a significant house
advantage. The game room can offer its patrons something
that the slumping economy all too often cannot: the hope
of hitting it big. While other businesses in the county
flounder, Dice’s is flourishing off the money of local
residents, who are often poor, sometimes desperate, and
always willing to ante up for one more shot at a
hundred-dollar jackpot.
On a Thursday afternoon in May, about a dozen men and
women sit on stools facing upright machines with bright
screens surrounded by dark wood consoles. At first
glance, the contraptions, which line both sides of the
rectangular room, appear to be video games, the room
like an arcade. But a closer look won’t reveal any
Golden Tee or Deer Hunter games. Instead, each device
offers a menu of amusements. With a touch of the screen,
the players flip between blackjack, bingo, keno, and
games that mimic slot machines. A friendly woman mills
about, offering to fetch free sodas. It’s also her job
to cash out the winnings—if there are any.
 Betty
Wright, a soft-spoken, middle-aged woman with a willowy
frame, silver nail polish, and round glasses sits in an
alcove toward the back. A black tarp covers the windows
over her head, blocking out the midday sunshine. The
console in front of her is decorated with palm trees,
cherries, and “1¢,” designating it as a penny slot
machine. It accepts $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills.
Wright is wagering 10 cents a whirl on a game called
Cherry Bonus. Every few seconds, she taps a button. The
screen catapults into a blur of lemons, cherries, and
plums. When the symbols stop, if the fruit matches up
correctly along any of eight lines—three vertical, three
horizontal, two diagonal—she wins (thus, video slot
machines are often called eight-liners). The more she
bets, the more she can potentially rack up. At 10 cents
a spin, the jackpot hovers at around $50.
Wright is scoring every couple of spins. The amount,
usually ranging from 5 to 25 cents, is added to her
credit. Despite her seemingly constant success,
Wright’s overall stash is dwindling. She could cash out
at almost any time. But she won’t. Winning big, she
explains, takes patience. “You have to feed the machine
until it comes around,” says Wright. “It’s like a
computer that operates on a wheel program.” She
demonstrates by rolling her hands in a circle. “You play
long enough, you can start hitting,” she says.
Wright, who is in her late fifties, has two children,
four grandchildren, and works full time as an electronic
seamstress at the Montague Boot Company’s factory.
Despite her many obligations, she manages to devote much
of her spare time to the game room. She says that she
comes to Dice’s once a day, everyday, usually for two or
three hours.
A few hundred miles south of Nocona, state
representatives in Austin debated the future of games
such as Cherry Bonus. Faced with an enormous
school-budget deficit, Gov. Rick Perry proposed
legalizing slot machines (allowing as many as 40,000) as
a way to increase revenue without raising property
taxes. Members of the Texas House of Representatives
sank Perry’s pro-gambling proposal the first time around
in early May, but there is too much money involved to
ever take the possibility of legalizing slot machines
completely off the table. But before lawmakers listen to
the siren song of a gambling industry that has invested
heavily in campaign contributions and top-dollar
lobbyists, they might want to visit Montague County to
learn what life is like for lower-income Texans who no
longer have to drive to an Indian reservation or fly to
Las Vegas to gamble.
Wright, for one, says she enjoys the fruits of Nocona
and thinks that slots should be legalized across the
state. “I don’t see the harm,” she says.
Like most of the regulars, Wright recalls precisely the
largest amount she’s ever won on a single spin at
Dice’s: $320.56. Her overall accounting—how much she
wins or loses in a given week, for example—is less
exact. “I win some, and I lose some,” says Wright. “I
probably spend a little more in the balance.”
In Montague County there are no movie theaters, no
museums, no bowling alleys, no roller rinks, and few
sit-down restaurants. Nevertheless, in addition to
Dice’s, there are at least four other mini-casinos
operating in the county. Some, like Dice’s, have turned
up in vacant storefronts. Others have set up shop in
tricked-out trailers.
All of the game rooms open early, usually at 7 a.m., and
close late, typically at 4 a.m., from Monday through
Saturday with more limited hours on Sunday. According to
the sign on its front door, Grandma’s Game Room in
Fruitland never closes.
To witness the extent to which the game rooms are
tolerated throughout the county, one only has to visit
the small town of Montague, which serves as the county
seat. The sheriff’s department and the county courthouse
sit in the center of town. About a hundred yards away, a
narrow pre-fab house rests just off the main road. A
whiteboard, decorated with drawings of red cherries,
welcomes visitors. Inside, the room is packed with video
slot machines.
Montague’s elementary school sits directly across the
street. The front door of the game room offers a nice
view of the children’s playground. The school’s jungle
gym offers a nice view of the adult playground. From the
steps of the courthouse, you could practically hit the
mini-casino with a Frisbee.
According to neighbors, the game room belongs to Edward
Fenoglio, a prominent local businessman—though he denies
it. Fenoglio belongs to one of the oldest families in
Montague County. The Fenoglios trace their roots in the
area all the way back to the 1870s, when their ancestors
first immigrated to the United States from Italy. Since
then, various Fenoglios have represented the county at
both the local and state levels. These days, the
extended Fenoglio family owns many ventures in the
county, including Fenoglio Bail Bonds, Fenoglio
Construction Co., and Fenoglio Custom Homes. Edward
Fenoglio also owns the local water company.
 There
are lots of theories circulating around town as to how
an illegal game room can survive in such close proximity
to a courthouse, an elementary school, and a sheriff’s
department. Some folks believe that no one wrangles with
the game rooms because of the potential risk of
upsetting the Fenoglios: the “one misstep and your
shower could dry up” theory.
Fenoglio dismisses the chatter as idle speculation and
says that he is no longer in the gambling business.
According to Fenoglio, he used to own one mini-casino in
Montague, which he says shut down due to a lack of foot
traffic. He thinks that the rest of the game rooms will
soon fold as well because of rising gas prices. “People
here can’t buy gasoline and gamble at the same time,”
says Fenoglio. “The kind of people that play these
machines don’t have a lot of money to begin with.”
However, years of economic hardship have done little to
dampen the game rooms’ popularity. In fact, the rise of
the mini-casinos has coincided with the decline of the
county’s fortunes.
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census
Bureau, one out of every seven residents in Montague
County currently lives in poverty. In 2000, the average
earnings per job in the county was $18,029, which was
less than half the statewide average of $37,072. In
2002, roughly 40 percent of the children in Montague
County qualified for a free-or reduced-price lunch.
Despite the grim economic data, Montague isn’t the
poorest county in Texas, in part because of its rich
history in boot manufacturing. For much of the 20th
century, the small town of Nocona, with its population
of 3,200 people, was known as the “Leather Goods Capital
of the Southwest.” Local factories churned out bountiful
numbers of cowboy boots, belts, and baseball gloves.
But by the mid-1990s, the demand for Western wear was
drying up. At the same time, many boot factories were
moving to Mexico and China. The free fall in boot
production hit the residents of Nocona particularly
hard. In 1999, after nearly 75 years of operation, the
Nocona Boot Company factory shut its doors. For years,
the factory had been the area’s largest nonagricultural
employer. At the time, more than 300 employees were
reportedly laid off.
Recently, Nocona’s boot industry has made a minor
recovery thanks to the Montague Boot Company, which
opened in 2001. But the overall upswing in the local
economy has been minimal. In 1990, countywide
unemployment rested at 4.3 percent. By 2002,
unemployment had increased to 6.3 percent. In the heady
days of the 1980s, the Nocona Boot Factory was cranking
out around 500,000 pairs of boots each year. These days,
the Montague Boot Company is producing roughly 25,000
pairs a year. Accordingly, the website for the Nocona
Chamber of Commerce has scaled back the town’s ambitious
claim, welcoming visitors to the “Leathergoods Center of
North Texas.”
The decline in boot manufacturing in Montague County has
coincided with the rise of two new industries: gambling
and methamphetamine production. About the time that the
boot factory was shutting down, homespun meth factories
began popping up with increasing frequency along the
back roads of the county. These days, a local nonprofit
organization called PAIN (Parents Against Illegal
Narcotics) offers yet another nickname for the county,
referring to it as “The #1 place for the manufacturing
of methamphetamines.”
Robert Donald, the vice president of the organization,
speculates that the sheriff’s department doesn’t have
the manpower to tackle both vices at once. And while the
game rooms are a problem, he says, it’s nothing like the
havoc that meth is wreaking.
“The sheriff only has a couple of deputies to cover the
entire county,” says Donald. “They literally don’t have
the resources to do anything about these game rooms
right now.”
It’s no coincidence that both meth labs and game rooms
are prospering simultaneously. Suppliers in both fields
have succeeded by attracting customers in search of the
same basic thing—a cheap blast of stimulation. The New
York Times Sunday Magazine recently ran a story about
the new wave of video slot machines. Howard Shaffer, the
director of Harvard Medical School’s division on
addictions, noted that video slot machines affect the
brain in the same way as “psychostimulants, like cocaine
or amphetamines.”
In Montague County, social service providers are
beginning to recognize the fallout of the game rooms.
Edwin Brooks, president of the Ministerial Alliance, a
charity made up of local churches, says that he
frequently receives phone calls from people asking for
help paying their utility bills or buying groceries.
Later, Brooks sees the same people with their cars
parked outside the game rooms.
“The eight-liners are a trap to catch our local people,”
says Brooks. “They don’t have money to go to Las Vegas
or Atlantic City, but they can do it right here. They
think that if they win, their problems will go away. But
instead, their problems are just getting worse.”
Brooks is quick to point out that the county was facing
hard times long before the advent of the game rooms, but
he also notes that for certain people, the constant
temptation of living near the machines has been
overwhelming. “You can see people sitting in there all
day long,” says Brooks. “It creates a problem of
addiction.”
The question of what to do about illegal game rooms is
not a new one for the Lone Star State.
Video slot machines first snuck into Texas sometime in
the 1990s, spreading across the state one truck stop at
a time. The games eventually carved out a new niche
within the ever-evolving landscape of American gambling:
strip-mall game rooms that were downscale and
unassuming.
Although the Texas Penal Code prohibits electronic
gambling devices, there is an exception for machines
with prizes limited to $5 or 10 times the cost of
playing the game once, whichever is less. The rule was
set up to accommodate arcade games, but game-room
operators soon adopted the “fuzzy animal” exemption as
their own. Many of the mini-casinos began awarding
winnings in the form of tickets that could be turned in
for cash and prizes.
Eventually, law enforcement officials started calling
the game rooms’ bluff. Between 1998 and 2003, the
Attorney General’s Special Crimes Division helped seize
approximately 2,000 eight-liner machines and $500,000 in
illegal proceeds.
The Texas Supreme Court heard two cases last year in
which game-room operators essentially doubled down on
their “fuzzy animal” card and challenged the state’s
right to confiscate their equipment. Both times, they
lost. Tom Kelly, a spokesperson for the Attorney
General’s office, says that the rulings have made it
easier for local law enforcement agencies to shut down
game rooms. As a result, the Special Crimes Division no
longer assists in the busts. “There should be no more
quarrelling about whether this is illegal or not,” says
Kelly. “It’s up to the sheriff, the district attorney,
and the county attorney to enforce the law.”
Last year, Wade Shelton, a semi-retired sewing machine
mechanic, approached members of the Nocona City Council
to protest the game rooms, which were still booming
despite the high court’s rulings. “I’ve seen people put
$300 or $400 in those machines going after a $50 pot,”
says Shelton. “They max out their credit cards. They
can’t pay their bills. These people need protection.
They can’t do it themselves.”
In response, Nocona officials passed an ordinance last
November declaring eight-liners “a public nuisance” and
requiring game-room owners to register and ante up $15
for each machine. One city official, who asked not to be
named, says that lackadaisical enforcement has rendered
the ordinance ineffective. So far, not a single owner
has registered.
In Bowie, a town of roughly 5,200 people on the southern
end of the county, city officials succeeded last year in
shutting down a number of game rooms. But the video
slots didn’t altogether vanish. Owners reopened the
mini-casinos outside the city limits, where the
jurisdiction shifts from the Bowie police force to the
county sheriff. “We’ve done all we can,” says James
Cantwell, the city manager. “The county officials have
chosen not to strictly enforce the law.”
County Attorney Jeb McNew says that he is aware of the
problem. In December, he and the district attorney sent
a memo to the sheriff’s department reiterating the
illegality of eight-liners and encouraging officers to
investigate any potential violations in the county. “I
have yet to get one offense report on them,” says McNew.
“But if it’s going on, shoot, let us know about it.”
Sheriff Chris Hamilton says that his officers haven’t
forwarded any cases to the county attorney because
they’ve been too busy fighting the meth labs. “When I
get through working my dopers and my burglars and things
that seem a little bit more high priority, I’ll invest
the money and time it’s going to take to prosecute these
guys that are running the eight-liner machines,” says
Hamilton. “Quite frankly, I don’t have the time to do it
right now.”
Ostensibly, the Texas Supreme Court’s rulings made it
simple for county officials to chase off game rooms. In
theory, once a sheriff threatens to confiscate the
machines, game room operators will usually shut down
their businesses rather than jeopardize tens of
thousands of dollars in equipment.
Sheriff Hamilton isn’t so sure. “It’s not like you can
just go out and arrest a guy for running it,” explains
Hamilton. “It doesn’t work that way. It requires a long
and expensive investigation.”
Sheriff Hamilton says that at some point in the
future—he can’t say precisely when—he intends on sending
a letter to the game-room owners offering them two weeks
to shut down voluntarily or face seizure of their
equipment and possible arrest. “What they’ll do then is
just move to another county,” Hamilton predicts.
So what’s the hold up? “I will not write that letter
until I am prepared, after the two-week period, to fall
in and start cracking down,” says the sheriff. “Don’t
run a bluff unless you can back it up.”
In the meantime, rumors continue to circulate that
county officials have other reasons for dragging their
feet. Hamilton says that neither he nor his deputies
have received any payoff from the game-room owners.
However, Hamilton believes that the game rooms might be
giving money to other civic organizations such as the
volunteer fire departments and the veterans
associations—just not to the police. “That’s what I’m
hearing,” says Hamilton. “But of course, that doesn’t
have anything to do with us.”
Back at Dice’s, Betty Wright polishes off her remaining
credits on lucky machine #25. It’s about 2:30 p.m., and
Wright has to work tonight at the boot factory. She
locates her purse, throws away her can of soda, and says
goodbye. On her way out, Wright walks past another of
Dice’s regulars, a woman whom everyone calls Ike.
Ike is dressed in a turquoise top, shorts, and canvas
sneakers with a funky floral print. She is sitting in
the corner, playing video poker, smoking a cigarette,
and drinking soda from a Styrofoam cup. “I like to play
poker,” says Ike. “It’s more of a challenge. It takes
more skill.”
A few years ago, Ike moved with her husband to Nocona
from San Francisco to be closer to her son. Ike says
that lawmakers in Austin should make video poker legal
across the state—especially in places like Nocona. “What
else do people have to do here?” she says. “Nothing.
This is my entertainment. We don’t go out to dinner.
There’s no movie theater. It’s my pastime.”
Ike suggests that the game rooms offer an escape from
the tedium of small-town life and, perhaps, from
something else—loneliness. Ike says that she misses San
Francisco, and she misses her son. Not long after she
moved to Nocona, he moved to Dallas to be closer to his
job. “I never see him now anyway,” says Ike.
Sometimes Ike comes to the game room with her husband,
but he’s on oxygen and can’t stay for long. Since most
of her friends live back in San Francisco, Ike usually
arrives by herself, which is fine. Video slots are meant
to be played alone. “People are nice in here,” says Ike.
“You can forget about your problems and your stress.
“Now they have hot dogs,” she adds, gesturing across the
room at the all-you-can-eat snack buffet. “Even if you
get hungry, you don’t have to leave.”
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