Lake of the Ozarks Casino Vote Put on the November Ballot

A measure, effectively, creating a path for a casino to land at Lake of the Ozarks, will appear on the November General ballot, after all.

That was the finding, today, by Honorable Judge Daniel Green in Cole County, ruling that 2,085 additional signatures in the second-congressional district, originally rejected by the Secretary of State’s office, are valid.

The result satisfies a requirement that Osage River Gaming collected enough valid signatures in six of the eight congressional districts to get the issue on the ballot.

“We were surprised when it got rejected through the process,” Says John Hancock from Osage River Gaming, “I don’t think that was done intentionally. I think it was a factor of our being the last petition in and I think they just kind of ran out of time.”

Hancock also says, with the petition now advancing there’s still some work to do “Now we’ve got to take take our message out to the voters and explain why this is good for the lake, why it’s good for the state of Missouri, why it’s good for early childhood education, because that’s where the money goes.”

As written, voter approval in November would create a 14^th statewide casino license to be issued for along the Osage River at Lake of the Ozarks.