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Aug. 30, 2024 |  By: Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Missouri judge puts Lake of the Ozarks casino proposal on November ballot

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By Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

A proposal to allow a new casino to be licensed on the Osage River near the Lake of the Ozarks will be on the November ballot, a Cole County judge ruled Friday.

The initiative, which was initially found to be 2,031 signatures short in the 2nd Congressional District, actually did have enough valid signatures, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office conceded when a planned trial over the petition opened before Judge Daniel Green.

The proposed constitutional amendment initially failed to qualify for the ballot because of signatures disallowed by local election officials. An additional 2,230 valid signatures were found by the proponents, Osage River Gaming and Convention, by reviewing the rejections.

Signature verification is “a massive, messy process that does not always produce perfect results,” Chuck Hatfield, the attorney representing the campaign, told Green.

The proposal will be Amendment 5 on the Nov. 5 ballot and joins three other initiative proposals — protecting reproductive rights, listed as Amendment 3; increasing the minimum wage, listed as Proposition A; and legalizing sports betting, listed as Amendment 2.

There are pending court challenges to the reproductive rights and sports wagering proposals that could strike them from the ballot.

The Osage River casino is being pushed by a committee that wants to build a casino to compete with a planned Osage Nation casino in the same area.

“Today is a victory for the initiative petition process and for voters who will benefit from our proposed development at the Lake of the Ozarks,” the committee said in a statement issued after Green ruled. 

The proposal would amend the Missouri Constitution to allow a casino along the Osage River between Bagnell Dam and the confluence with the Missouri River. The constitution currently authorizes casinos only along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

The proposal would also override a state law limiting the state to 13 licensed casinos, passed in 2008 as a result of an initiative sponsored by casino operators.

The Lake of the Ozarks is one of Missouri’s busiest tourism destinations. The casino proposal is being bankrolled by Bally’s, which currently operates a casino in Kansas City, and RIS Inc., a major regional developer. 

Each has contributed about half of the $4.3 million raised for the petition drive.

The casino will support more than 700 new jobs in the lake area. The project, if approved, would generate admission and other fee revenue of $2.1 million annually, according to the language appearing on the ballot, and annual gaming tax revenue of $14.3 million.

There are also two constitutional amendments proposed by the General Assembly on the ballot.  Amendment 6 would give the courts power to enforce payment of fees that support retirement benefits for sheriffs and prosecutors. Amendment 7 would ban the use of ranked-choice voting in Missouri elections and restate the current ban on voting by people who are not U.S. citizens.