Arkansas Voters Revoke Pope County Casino License, Require Local Approval for Future Casinos

Petitions being delivered in July to the state capitol in Arkansas to put Issue 2 – an initiative to revoke a casino license approval in favor of locals having a say over licensure – on the November ballot, where it passed. (Image: Andrew DeMillo / AP)

An Arkansas ballot initiative that would require voter approval for future casino licenses while also revoking the current license for a casino in Pope County passed easily on Tuesday, though the results provide hope that a resort may still be built in the county sometime in the future.

As of Saturday morning, with 99 percent reporting, 55.8 percent of Arkansas voters had voted for Issue 2, with 44.2 percent against the measure. The Associated Press called this race on Wednesday with a gap of over 130,000 votes, which stayed virtually the same as the last ballots were counted. 

Pope County Rejects Issue 2 in ‘Epitome of Irony’

However, Pope County voters – those arguably most invested in the outcome of Issue 2 – voted strongly against the measure. With 99 percent of the vote counted, 13,391 Pope County residents voted against the initiative, compared to 10,668 in favor of it.

Pope County Judge Ben Cross, a supporter of efforts to bring a casino to the county, said that the vote showed that local officials were right to push forward with a casino proposal.

“In what is undoubtedly the epitome of irony, Pope County voters definitively made their voices heard once and for all on the casino issue by soundly defeating Issue 2 in our county,” Cross said in a statement. “In the second aspect of irony, the very group that advocated for local control, effectively ripped it away in this election by running a $17 million anti-casino campaign with another casino’s money.”

Cross attributed the statewide vote to “disinformation” and “misleading advertising,” according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. There were also questions over the wording of Issue 2, with some suggesting the title “Countywide Voter Approval for New Casino Licenses and Repeal Casino Licenses in Pope Count Initiative” could lead voters to think a Yes vote was in favor of casinos.

Pope County Continues to Wait for Casino

The passage of Issue 2 will mark the third time that a casino license was issued and later revoked in Pope County. 

In 2018, Arkansas voters approved an amendment to the state constitution to authorize two casinos, one of which would be in Pope County. By 2020, the Arkansas Racing Commission had awarded that license to Gulfside Casino Partnership. 

However, that licensed was nullified in a court battle, as it was found that Gulfside failed to get a letter of endorsement from a current Pope County official, as theirs came from a former Pope County Judge. The Racing Commission then moved to give the license to a partnership between Cherokee Nation Businesses and Legends Resort Casino in 2021, but that decision was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2023, which found that the state constitution only allowed casino licenses to go to a single entity, not a partnership.

Finally, the Cherokee Nation and Legends – working together under a single entity known as Cherokee Nation Entertainment – were awarded the Pope County casino license for a proposed facility in Russellville this summer. 

However, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma – which operates a casino just 90 miles west of the proposed site in Russellville – quickly moved to try to block the Russellville resort from being built. The tribe funded Local Voters in Charge and succeeded in getting Issue 2 on the ballot despite legal challenges. 

Still, the proxy war between the two tribes and their respective gaming interests may be far from over. Tuesday’s vote suggests that Pope County voters may well approve a casino in the region even under the new laws, though it remains to be seen if the Arkansas Racing Commission will have to run through the entire process again before awarding a new license.