Is that gambling at Speaking Rock?

Walk into the Socorro Entertainment Center or Speaking Rock, both operated by the Tigua Indians of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and what you’ll find there looks like gambling, sounds like gambling and feels like gambling.

In room after room, there are hundreds of machines that look, play and pay a lot like slot machines.

You can put in a $10 bill and in a matter of minutes, lose it all or double your money and then take the machine’s payout slip to a cashier and get cash.

But sometimes, under the complexities of Texas and federal law, what may look, feel and pay like gambling isn’t gambling at all.

The Texas Attorney General’s office, which shut down the Tiguas’ Speaking Rock Casino in 2002 after a three-year legal fight, doesn’t like what’s happening on the tribe’s properties now and has tried to stop it.

In legal motions, the state calls it gambling. But no court has agreed.

The machines are not slots; they are sweepstakes validation terminals, the tribe’s lawyers contend. And no court has disagreed.

So, the games go on at the Tigua entertainment centers, along with free concerts by big name performers and bands, alcohol sales, good food and the cheapest cigarettes in Texas.

The free concerts put a big dent in competitors’ business and have closed down a few, said one venue manager who asked not to be named.

“It has affected a tier of entertainment and those clubs that are close to the entertainment centers,” he said. “Look at any casino in New Mexico. Anyone who does entertainment will charge for tickets to break even, and then make money on gambling and alcohol.

“Why is this the only back-door casino that has free concerts?”

Visit Speaking Rock on a weekday morning, and you’ll find a surprising number of cars in the parking lot, great 1960s and ‘70s music playing in the game rooms and a crowd of older folks sitting comfortably in front of noisy machines with cartoony graphics.

A lot of the patrons are women and a lot of them smoke. Ashtrays are everywhere. Serious players say they come two or three times a week, others once or twice a month.

“You win and you lose,” said one regular with $80 in credits on her machine.

On one morning last week, the half dozen players El Paso Inc. interviewed all spoke Spanish only, and agreed that they were having a good time gambling – or playing. It’s the same word in Spanish.

El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza declined to comment on the situation but conveyed his thoughts through office spokeswoman Renee Railey.

She said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot has jurisdiction over gaming issues on the Tiguas’ tribal land, not Esparza’s office.

In opinion after opinion delivered to counties and cities, the attorney general opinions consistently state that if the machines pay cash, they’re illegal and in violation of criminal laws against gambling.

The 2012 opinion to a county attorney states, “Because the eight-liner machines described in your request issue tickets redeemable for items that do not constitute noncash merchandise prizes, toys, or novelties, the machines do not meet the standard for the illegal gambling device exception (provided by the Texas Penal Code).”