{"id":39834,"date":"2016-09-20T14:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=39834"},"modified":"2016-09-20T11:25:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T18:25:22","slug":"arkansas-casino-ballot-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Among Arkansas Casino Ballot Opponents Picking Up Steam"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_39836\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39836\" data-style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39836\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"Arkansas casino fight spills onto TV\" width=\"320\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault-142x80.jpg 142w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption  id=\"caption-attachment-39836\"class=\"text-description\">Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, believes that the pro-casino supporters of an Arkansas casino ballot vote\u00a0is composed of predatory businessmen from Missouri. (Image: thv11.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i><\/i><\/b><i> <\/i>The war of words over Arkansas\u2019 casino ballot heated up this week, as the pro-casino movement requested to have a lawsuit that would block the ballot that was dismissed by the Arkansas Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Arkansas Winning Initiative (AWI), which wants voters to amend the constitution to allow up to three casinos in the state, collected over 100,000 signatures in favor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wynn-angered-revere-slots-parlor-proposal\">casino gaming<\/a>, enough to force a referendum under state law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But earlier this month, anti-casino group the Committee to Protect Arkansas\u2019 Values\/Stop Casinos Now filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court aiming to stop the ballot in its tracks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Their filing contends that the language of the ballot misleads the public into believing that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billion-dollar-sports-betting-ring-infiltrated-us-authorities\">sports betting<\/a> would be available at the proposed casinos, while in reality it will be illegal. It also claims that the ballot fails to convey comprehensively to voters the consequences of the measure.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Gaming Monopoly <\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">On Monday, the AWI filed a motion arguing that the anti-casino group has no standing to file the suit because it has not shown that it has been harmed by the decision to hold the ballot vote. It also claims that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Last week, Arkansas\u2019 existing gaming industry, which consists of Oaklawn Racing and Gaming and Southland Park Gaming and Racing became an unlikely ally of the state\u2019s anti-gambling groups, donating $109,500 to the cause. Oaklawn and Southland offer \u201cskill-based\u201d video gaming at their racetracks and currently enjoy a complete monopoly on gaming in Arkansas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A popular theme is developing within\u00a0the anti-ballot movement\u2019s rhetoric, which sees AWI as \u201cout-of-state\u201d businessmen, preying on Arkansas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It was this theme that Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council was happy to expand on when he went toe-to-toe with AWI spokesman Robert Coon on the local current affairs program Arkansas Matters this week.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Out-of-staters<\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThis is a group of Missouri businessmen who\u2019ve come south down here to Arkansas, telling the people in Fayetteville, Harrison and Texarkana that they think a casino would be really good for their communities,\u201d complained Cox. \u201cAs far as I know, nobody asked the good people of those cities if they wanted a casino, they\u2019re just going to get it whether they like it or not.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>\u201cIf these Missouri businessman had really thought that this was a great idea, I wonder why they didn\u2019t do it back home in Missouri,\u201d he added. \u201cWhy did they come to Arkansas and try to dump it on us? There\u2019s got to be something wrong with this otherwise they\u2019d be doing it in their own back yard.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cOur committee involves people from in state and out of state, but if you look at what you have now, Oaklawn is owned by people from Missouri, and Southland is owned by people from Buffalo, New York,\u201d countered Coon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWhen the other side talk about out-of-state, they like to ignore the real truth about what they already have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The war of words over Arkansas\u2019 casino ballot heated up this week, as the pro-casino movement requested to have a lawsuit that would block the ballot that was dismissed by the Arkansas Supreme Court. The Arkansas Winning Initiative (AWI), which wants voters to amend the constitution to allow up to three casinos in the state, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":39836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,18,61],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fighting Among Arkansas Casino Ballot Opponents Picking Up Steam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Arkansas casino ballot to legalize casino gaming is causing a fracas in the state as opponents fight for their side in the debate.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fighting Among Arkansas Casino Ballot Opponents Picking Up Steam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Arkansas casino ballot to legalize casino gaming is causing a fracas in the state as opponents fight for their side in the debate.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-20T21:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-20T18:25:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"180\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/\",\"name\":\"Fighting Among Arkansas Casino Ballot Opponents Picking Up Steam\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-20T21:00:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-20T18:25:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/8c48bf89dc86da77b4d856c7b3b78d77\"},\"description\":\"An Arkansas casino ballot to legalize casino gaming is causing a fracas in the state as opponents fight for their side in the debate.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/arkansas-casino-ballot-fight\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/mqdefault.jpg\",\"width\":320,\"height\":180,\"caption\":\"Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, believes that the pro-casino movement is composed of predatory businessmen from Missouri. 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