Game Night

Get out of the house for a different type of game night at Choctaw

It's like Go Fish, only with money on the line.

Photo courtesy of Choctaw Casino & Resort–Durant

It’s time for a different type of game night — one that gets you out of the house. So clear off your table and come play on Choctaw’s. Whether you’re a fan of wagering on a certain combination of cards, as in Go Fish, or placing your bets on more classic board games like Monopoly, Life, Clue, or Candy Land, Choctaw Casino & Resort–Durant in Durant, Oklahoma, has a table game with a similar strategy or chance.

Ask your dealer for advice when you arrive at the table; he or she will be happy to show you how to play.

Three Card Poker
Three card poker combines the excitement of poker with the speed of traditional casino games like slots. It requires less attention and and is a smaller time commitment, making it an ideal initiation for the novice. Players are dealt three cards. You have the option to bet against the dealer, bet on the value of your own three-card hand, or bet both.

Let It Ride
The objective of Let It Ride is to get the best possible poker hand using your three cards and two "community" cards. Played at a more relaxed pace, it’s a variation of five-card stud, except the player is given two opportunities to withdraw exactly one-third of their initial wager.

Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em
Texans are no stranger to this game. Increase the excitement of "poker night" by heading to Choctaw, where playing with new people and real money raises the stakes.

Pai Gow Poker
This is a casino version of Chinese dominoes, but played with cards. Traditionally a tile game popular in Macau’s gambling dens, Pai Gow is adapted to be played like a poker hand. Pai Gow poker utilizes a 52-card deck, plus a joker that acts as a wild card (but only serves as an ace), or to complete a straight, a flush, or a straight flush.

Blackjack
Blackjack requires some strategy to be successful. It’s a decision-driven game: when to hit, when to stay, when to split or double down. The crux of the game is beating the dealer — and not busting on 21.

Baccarat
In baccarat, two hands of cards are dealt (the banker’s and the player’s), and you wager on which hand will total the closest to 9.

In a way, baccarat is akin to Clue; you’re placing bets based on little information. You can glean some info from the cards that were played in the last hand, and bet based on the likelihood that a certain card might be drawn.

Roulette
Legends abound about this Parisian favorite, which is rumored to be a preferred pastime with French monks in their monasteries. While many believe roulette is an adaptation of a French board game, the Greeks have also tried to stake a claim to the game’s origin.

Roulette, meaning "little wheel" in French, is similar to the games of Life and Monopoly in that you can’t predict what you’ll roll. Sometimes you’ll win big; other times, you’ll lose it all.

Craps
Think of craps like Candy Land. It literally requires no skill — you could lose to anyone with a lucky throwing hand.

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All Eyes on Them

Dallas alt hip-hop group wins prestigious Tiny Desk Contest by NPR

Cure for Paranoia/Facebook

As winners of the Tiny Desk Contest, Cure for Paranoia will record their own Tiny Desk concert and go on tour.

Few live recording studios or musical web series have the cultural sway of NPR's Tiny Desk, and a Dallas band is poised to make an impactful debut: Cure For Paranoia, an alternative hip-hop project by rapper Cameron McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analo, has won the high-stakes annual Tiny Desk Contest for 2026.

They'll record their official Tiny Desk show "soon," the announcement by NPR says.

Winning the concert also means Cure for Paranoia is going on tour. The only Texas stop will be at Emo's Austin on June 24.

Tiny Desk is known for platforming both niche and majorly successful artists — NPR posted a new Foo Fighters set on YouTube on May 13 — for stripped-down sets that are literally played behind former All Things Considered director Bob Boilen's old desk. (Fun fact for Texans: Tiny Desk was created because folk artist Laura Gibson was disappointed with the sound at her South by Southwest show in Austin in 2008, and she wanted a redo.)

Most artists who appear on Tiny Desk more than 15 years later are already well-known, at least in their specific circles. But the Tiny Desk Contest, which launched in 2015, helps a growing group of newer, unsigned artists get their foot in the door. Contestants record one video of them performing a single song behind a desk, and a jury of radio staff and musicians chooses their favorite.

In their audition video, Cure for Paranoia gathered 11 musicians around a truly tiny desk and in front of downtown Dallas' iconic gigantic eyeball sculpture. They played the song "No Brainer," a frenetic track that starts with clever boasts and becomes a criticism of racism in the United States.

McCloud, a pre-school teacher, is known independently of Cure for Paranoia for rapping to his social media following about politics and current events. Some of those lyrics made it into "No Brainer." He says he started the group because he found that music was more helpful than medication for coping with bipolar depression and paranoid schizophrenia.

Alex Marrero, host of the Austin-based KUTX show Horizontes, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the visuals in Cure for Paranoia's audition.

“When this popped up, I immediately felt something different," he wrote in a blurb for the announcement. "It just jumped out. The visuals were super cool and creative, BUT I could still totally envision them bringing the heat behind the Desk.”

Madison McFerrin, jazz vocalist and daughter of the famous singer Bobby McFerrin, was one of the musical judges.

"Cure For Paranoia’s energy is infectious, fresh and distinctly theirs — exactly what you want in a Contest winner!" she wrote.

McCloud's post on Instagram announcing the group's win has only been up for three hours at the time of this article's publication, and it already has more than 8,000 likes. The YouTube audition has garnered 74,000 views.

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