EAGLE PASS - Amid acres of colored, flashing electronic games, a few hundred mask-wearing VIP players tested their luck Wednesday as the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino reopened after a six-month shutdown caused by the pandemic.

At 11 a.m., the huge darkened screen outside the entrance suddenly came to life, flashing “Now Open” in bright yellow and orange, as the invited players began arriving.

Limited at 25 percent capacity, the peculiar quiet on the sprawling gaming floor was soon interrupted twice in short order with a siren signaling that someone had just hit a jackpot.

That someone was Emma Gonzalez of Edinburg, who was at a loss to explain her sudden good fortune.

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“I have no idea. The screen just exploded in front of me. It says jackpot!” exclaimed Gonzalez, who, within 15 minutes won two $10,000 jackpots playing on Da Ji Da Li machines.

Gonzalez, who just finished writing a book about musician Little Joe of Familia fame, said she had no particular strategy or particular plans for the money.

“We haven’t been out since the COVID. We took a gamble coming here. We’re not going to leave early,” her husband, Arnie Gonzalez, said.

The state’s only legal casino, the Lucky Eagle offers more than 3,300 electronic gaming devices, poker games and bingo on a 117,000-square-foot gaming floor. It closed March 19 at the onset of the pandemic, leaving thousands of Texas gamers in the lurch.

In normal times, the 249-room hotel is booked solid, tour buses from San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley arrive daily, and players sometimes have to wait for favored games.

Owned by the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe, the casino paid out jackpots last year worth $104 million.

Casinos in Louisiana and Las Vegas also closed in March, but all had reopened by early June, with a host of new safety measures, many of which were ignored by visitors.

In East Texas, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe reopened its Naskila Gaming hall earlier this month, but its future remains shaky. The tribe is embroiled in a long-running legal fight with the state to stay open.

Maverick County and Eagle Pass have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus, prompting operators of the Lucky Eagle to take a conservative approach to reopening, general manager Chris McClain said.

“We’re probably one of the last casinos in the country to open. We want to make sure that when the guests get here, they have a great experience and are safe,” he said.

Among those stopping by Wednesday afternoon were Maverick County Judge David Saucedo and Eagle Pass Mayor Luis Sifuentes. They came not to play, but to inspect the casino’s safety precautions, which got their approval.

To make sure that guests observe proper social distancing, about half the gaming machines have been disabled, and many of the chairs were removed.

In addition, smoking is now prohibited in the casino.

Arriving guests are required to wear masks and get their temperature taken at the entrance. Plastic barriers are in place at the bar and other areas.

“We’ll be open 24 hours, and overnight we’ll be closing parts of the casino, as we empty the machines. We’ll also do a deep clean of each of those zones,” McClain said.

The casino did not publicly advertise its Wednesday soft opening. As far as the public knows, the official reopening will be Thursday.

Its early days

The Lucky Eagle has come a long way since it began offering gaming in 1996 in cramped portable buildings, long since demolished.

It has been expanded and modernized, and now compares to casinos on Indian reservations in surrounding states.

Along the way it has lifted the Kickapoos from abject poverty as migrant farm workers to prosperity on their 126-acre reservation on the Rio Grande.

The casino is restricted to Class II gambling, one notch below Las Vegas-style gaming.

The tribe has used its gaming wealth to build homes for tribal members, as well as numerous modern tribal buildings. The casino also provides jobs and healthcare for tribal members.

While the casino does not divulge much financial or business information, in recent years it has drawn more than 3 million visitors, according to one official.

On Wednesday afternoon, the vast darkened interior seemed almost deserted, with just a few hundred people inside.

In pre-pandemic times, a thousand or more players would try their luck at the seductive beeping machines with names like “Double the Devil,” “Rumble in the Jungle,” “Playboy Platinum” and “Mega Meltdown.”

The ‘happy place’

Among the early arrivals Wednesday were Ray and Bertha Suarez of Del Rio, recipients of VIP invitations, who, since the Lucky Eagle’s closure, had been going to Oklahoma to gamble.

“It’s nice. It’s close. We can come in the morning and go home. It’s a big casino and we win. We win big,” Bertha said.

“It’s true,” chimed in her husband. “I won $15,000 betting 80 cents.”

Bertha slid $100 into a machine and began to hit the play button on a Loteria game as familiar lottery card images of skulls, scorpions and cactus began flashing across the screen.

“I have a limit of $50 a machine. If it doesn’t pay, I get out,” she said.

In the far distance of the cavernous interior, an emphatic human voice rose above the soft rock and the electronic machine noises.

“Come on! Come on! Let’s Go!,” exclaimed Bibi Cates, 70, of Mountain Home, as she rolled through 50 free plays on a machine that flashed large gold coins.

Cates, who works at the Kerrville State Hospital, had come with her daughter Angela, 50, and was on a roll. The screen showed her $620 ahead.

“We never expect to win. When we do it’s a blessing. Thank you Baby Jesus,” she said.

For Cates, the blessed day had finally come. The Lucky Eagle was open again, and, as she put it, she was “killing this machine.”

“We’ve been waiting for this reopening forever. We’ve had withdrawals. This is my happy place,” she said.