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Dallas Cowboys Partner with OK Casino in First-of-its-kind Deal

Earlier this week, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones broke some new ground in the world of NFL sponsorships and marketing, he picked up an official team casino. The move marks the first time that an NFL team has entered into the types of sponsorship deals that are extremely common in the rest of the world. It also marks a major relaxing of the league’s longtime cold shoulder towards the regulated gambling industry.
Jones, who is known to be something of a maverick among NFL team owners, made the announcement at the Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma surrounded by the team’s iconic cheerleaders and casino general manager Jack Parkinson. The Winstar World is run by the Chickasaw Nation and is about an hour’s drive away from Dallas. (Though Jones points out that it’s merely 20 minutes away from Dallas if you take a private helicopter like he does.)
The Cowboys’ deal with the tribal casino marks a significant thaw in the league’s longtime fear and paranoia of anything that’s even remotely connected to gambling. The famously conservative team owners have long feared that any connection to gambling or casinos could put their players in a position to be blackmailed by 1950’s style mobsters (the kind who haven’t run casinos since the 1970’s).
Jones celebrated the new partnership, which mostly will consist of the casino hosting team events, by telling the Star-Telegram, “It is a privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder as partners with such a prominent entertainment brand like WinStar World Casino.”
It’s worth noting that sports betting is not legal in Oklahoma and the WinStar does not offer a sports book.