WASHINGTON (ABP) — In the same week, voters in Missouri and an elections board in the District of Columbia dealt successive blows to the gambling industry.
By a 56-to-44 percent margin Aug. 3, “Show-Me” state voters defeated a proposed amendment to the Missouri constitution that would have authorized a “riverboat” casino in Rockaway Beach, Mo. — near the popular tourist destination of Branson.
And on Aug. 5, D.C elections officials invalidated tens of thousands of signatures on a petition that would have placed a slot-machine proposal on the city's November ballot.
The Missouri vote came during an election that saw record turnout due to the gambling issue and two other items on the ballot — a hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary and a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage. The marriage ban passed by an overwhelming majority.
Missouri voters had previously approved amendments legalizing riverboat casinos as well as large land-based casinos surrounded by “moats” connected to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The proposal would have expanded the gambling zone to a lake on the White River, in southwest Missouri's Ozark Mountains.
Christian groups in the state were involved in opposition to the proposed casino.
“As long as the opposition organizes, they can beat gambling anywhere,” said Thomas Grey, executive director of the National Council Against Legalized Gambling, who was involved in the Branson casino fight. Grey, a Methodist minister from Illinois, said gambling initiatives were defeated in 43 of 46 attempts during 2003.
In the District of Columbia, city elections officials determined that only 21,664 of the more than 56,000 signatures gambling promoters paid workers to collect for the petition had actually come from registered Washington voters. Of that number, they invalidated 6,977 more after they found evidence of forgery and other violations of district elections laws. That left slots promoters with less than 15,000 valid signatures — short of the nearly 18,000 needed to get an item on the ballot.
The petition would have placed a proposal before Washington voters to open a slot-machine parlor on a blighted section of New York Avenue, in the city's northeastern quadrant.
Gambling promoters in Washington have reportedly vowed to appeal the elections board's decision to a federal court.
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