Rockaway Beach casino project is almost “dead”

According to the city’s Mayor, the project for a new casino in Rockaway Beach is almost “dead.”

US.- Mayor Don Smith from Rockaway Beach, Missouri, said that there is a 90 percent chance that the efforts to build a casino in the city are dead. The Mayor confirmed that whilst he was optimistic that they could actually move forward with the proposal, the backers said that any effort would’ve been in vain since the existing casinos would have been against it.

The state currently has 13 casino licenses, and they’re all in use. Whilst the constitution only authorises only five types of gambling activities in the state, including the state lottery, and charitable bingo, the Rockaway Beach Mayor said a few weeks ago that he was confident that both obstacles could be addressed in a ballot that would require approval by a majority of state voters.

Last month, Don Smith said that a majority of residents were in favor of opening a casino in the small town, even though they lost an effort in 2004 that wanted to change the state’s constitution that states that the venues can only be built on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

“They would have been able to tie that up in the courts for years,” he said about the existing casinos, and added that he was in favor of a new casino because “it would bring hobs to a town that is tired of being the armpit of poverty.”