A casino development group, Osage River Gaming, wants to amend the Missouri constitution so it can build a casino at the Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Current state law allows only 13 casino licenses, and casinos must be located within 1,000 feet of the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. But the group’s spokesman Tim Hand said, “It’s gonna happen one way or another.”
Hand said Osage River Gaming is made up of several “affluent business people” who own businesses at the Lake of the Ozarks area. It was formed in 2009 when the Missouri Gaming Commission awarded the license of the President Casino in St. Louis to a casino in Cape Girardeau, due to its untapped market and distance from existing casinos. “We looked at that, and we said, ‘Wow. The lake is a way more affluent tourist mecca than Cape Girardeau,’” he stated.
Hand said Osage River Gaming believes St. Jo Frontier Casino in St. Joseph, Century Casino Cape Girardeau, Century Casino Caruthersville and/or Mark Twain Casino in La Grange could be on the verge of closing, within three to five years. “You have this little property taking up a license, generating very little revenue for the state when that license could be here. We fully expect one of those properties, at least, to close its doors because they’re just in a market where there’s not enough population to support it,” Hand said.
Not so fast, said Lyle Randolph, general manager at the Century Casino locations in Cape Girardeau and Caruthersville. “We don’t believe they’re underperforming. We think, for those markets, they’re doing very well,” Randolph said. He said Missouri Gaming Commission Chairman Mike Leara told him Century Casino Cape Girardeau handled Covid-19 economic challenges better than most of the state’s other casinos.
Admissions at the Cape Girardeau casino have returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 108,656 admissions in April. He added, “In April, as reported by the gaming commission, the amount for the city would be $152,706 in gaming tax and $108,656 in admission tax.”
Randolph said the Cape Girardeau location also is considering adding a hotel in the near future.
“Osage River Gaming apparently looked at the list of casinos in the state, picked the rural or out-state casinos and said we must be underperforming so they should be moved to the Lake of the Ozarks. Of course, that is not the way it works. The goal in granting casino licenses was not just to have casinos in large metropolitan areas, but to add them to some areas of the state that needed additional employment or to help stimulate local growth. I think it’s safe to say that the casino license in Caruthersville may actually be more important than a casino license in an already vibrant economic or tourist area such as the Lake of the Ozarks,” Randolph stated.
He added he believes it’s “unfair for anyone to look at rural casino locations and say they are underperformers. That would be like looking at our local university or hospitals and saying they underperform because they have less enrollment or serve fewer patients than they would if they were located in a more populated area.”
But Hand’s group is undeterred, even though a bill to expand the number of casinos to 14 failed to pass out of committee. He believes another bill will be introduced. And, he said, his group’s proposed casino would bring in about $100 million in new net revenue for the Lake of the Ozarks economy and create 700 jobs permanent jobs. “It’s hard to vote against that, I think,” Hand said.
He said if legislation that adds licenses is signed into law, Osage River Gaming will apply for and receive a license in less than six months. “By the end of next year, you’ll see a project underway,” Hand said. And if, instead of legislation, an initiative petition puts the proposed constitutional change on the ballot, Hand said it would increase the number of licenses to 16 and allow casinos to be developed anywhere on the Lake of the Ozarks.
Hand said polls indicate the measure would pass if it reaches the ballot. “If you’re morally opposed, you missed that vote because, in 1994, it was legalized,” he said, referring to the statewide vote that allowed riverboat casinos. He added, “There are a lot of ill-informed mouths talking on Facebook and otherwise here. It doesn’t matter what they think locally. It’s a constitutional change which requires a statewide vote. We’re confident that, if it’s on the ballot, it’ll pass.”
