The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas has broken ground on the Naskila Casino Resort, a major gaming and hospitality development in Deep East Texas that leaders say will bring jobs, tourism and lasting opportunity to the region.
Key takeaways
- The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe broke ground on the Naskila Casino Resort in Leggett, Polk County.
- Plans include around 3,400 gaming machines and a 366-room hotel, with a target opening in late 2028.
- Naskila already delivers some $251 million in annual economic impact and over 1,000 jobs.
A major step for the tribe
Tribal representatives, local officials, casino staff and community members gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of construction. The resort will rise on roughly 95 acres of tribal land in Leggett, about nine miles north of Livingston along U.S. Highway 59, and represents a significant expansion beyond the tribe's existing reservation site between Livingston and Woodville.
The ceremony took place on Thursday, June 18, 2026, under a tent at the construction site off Highway 59. It featured a Flag Song, a flute performance and an invocation before tribal leaders turned the first dirt. Hundreds of people attended, including Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy, former state Representative James White and Jonodev Chaudhuri, a former chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission.
Leaders expect the property to draw visitors from across Texas, including the Houston metro area some 85 miles to the south. If everything stays on schedule, the resort is set to open in late 2028 — and it arrives as Naskila Casino marks its tenth anniversary, having operated Class II electronic bingo gaming since 2016 and grown into one of the area's largest employers.
What's planned
- Gaming: ~3,400 machines, with dedicated smoking and non-smoking areas
- Hotel: 366 rooms plus a resort-style swimming pool
- Dining & leisure: restaurants, bars and entertainment venues
- Business: conference facilities and an event center
- Identity: design elements reflecting Alabama-Coushatta heritage
- Opening: targeted for late 2028
Tribal officials describe it as one of the largest hospitality projects planned for the region in recent years, expecting it to lift visitor numbers across Polk County and the surrounding communities while creating new jobs.
The resort is planned at roughly 685,000 square feet on the site at 10450 U.S. Highway 59 and will be built in phases. The first phase due in late 2028 includes a high-limit VIP gaming area and about 35,000 square feet of event and conference space, anchored by a grand ballroom for 1,000 guests. JCJ Architecture is leading the design and Yates Construction is the builder.
Leaders look to the future
Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas Chairman Ricky Sylestine framed the groundbreaking as the payoff for years of planning and perseverance.
"It's a long time coming really, it's something that's needed. We started out from nothing, now to where we are today — just because of the gaming aspect of it, we've really been blessed at this point,"
Sylestine said, adding that the project is "for our kids, this is for their kids, their kids' kids."
Vice-Chairperson Nita Battise said the moment was also a tribute to the leaders who came before.
"I actually thought about past tribal members, our past Minkos, our chiefs, who were instrumental in getting this done who are no longer with us. So their dream is becoming reality, and this reality will move forward,"
Battise traced the project back to a tribal meeting held on August 1, 2015 in the building that is now Naskila Casino, called to discuss gaming with tribal citizens as a source of economic development. "Keep in mind, we had all these obstacles going against us," she said at the groundbreaking. "But we are reminded that we are resilient people and we will move forward and this is what we did."
Second Chief Herbert Johnson added a note of identity and permanence: "As Alabama-Coushatta people… we are here, we've been here in East Texas, and we'll forever be your friend."
Economic impact and what comes next
According to tribal officials, Naskila Casino already generates around $251 million in annual economic impact and has created more than 1,000 permanent jobs since opening, making it the second-largest employer in Polk County. Gaming revenue has helped fund housing, scholarships and other community programs — including 13 homes built for tribal members, with more residential development planned.
A study commissioned by the Texas Forest Country Partnership put that impact at $251.7 million a year. According to an economic impact study cited by The Dallas Morning News, the 1,000 permanent jobs linked to Naskila pay about $34.5 million in annual wages, more than 15% of private-sector wages in Polk County.
The tribe is also expanding before the resort opens. A temporary casino on the future resort site in Leggett, due to open in summer 2026, will run around the clock with 300 electronic bingo machines, a 24-hour deli, a players club and roughly 300 parking spaces — a venue Chairman Sylestine has said should add 110 jobs. The tribe additionally runs the Ischoopa Travel Center on U.S. Highway 190, offering fuel, retail, food and gaming.
Branded Naskila Casino Leggett, the temporary hall sits next to the construction site and was scheduled to open in August, staying in operation until the resort is ready. The original Naskila Casino in Livingston will keep running throughout construction; it is unclear whether it will stay open once the resort debuts.
The path here was not simple. Keith Sherrer, Naskila's interim general manager and COO, recalled the early legal battles: "When we opened the original casino, the state of Texas filed a lawsuit and tried to shut us down. It was roughly a five-year legal fight." The new resort, he said, will be "a much more grand experience, a much more refined experience," while keeping "the same fun games that people have become accustomed to playing."
A decades-long fight over tribal gaming
The legal history Sherrer refers to runs back to the 1980s. The Restoration Act of 1987, which restored federal recognition to the Alabama-Coushatta and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo of El Paso, barred both tribes from gaming prohibited in Texas. A year later the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) set out the national framework under which tribes may offer Class II games such as bingo. In 1994 the Fifth Circuit sided with the state in a decision known as Ysleta I, holding that the Restoration Act rather than IGRA controlled gaming on the two tribes' lands.
After the National Indian Gaming Commission approved the tribe's gaming ordinance in 2015, the Texas attorney general sued, but Naskila was allowed to stay open from May 2016 while the case moved through the courts. On June 15, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Ysleta del Sur Pueblo v. Texas that the state could not ban electronic bingo on the tribes' lands because Texas does not prohibit bingo. "We find no evidence Congress endowed state law with anything like the power Texas claims," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote. The following month, Attorney General Ken Paxton's office told the Fifth Circuit it would not appeal a 2021 ruling in the tribe's favor.
The Alabama-Coushatta, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas in Eagle Pass and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo are the three tribes operating electronic bingo casinos, and the Leggett resort will be the state's fourth tribal casino. Federal authorities have cleared the tribe to use the 95-acre Leggett tract, which lies outside its Livingston reservation.
The bottom line
After a decade of Class II bingo and a hard-fought legal history, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe is betting big on a full-scale resort. If Naskila Casino Resort opens on schedule in 2028, it could reshape the tourism and jobs picture across Deep East Texas — and stands as a milestone the tribe has been working toward for generations.
