Lake of the Ozarks Casino Ballot Initiative Comes Up Short on Signatures

^{The sun has set on the latest proposal to bring a casino to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. (Photo: Bill Grant / Alamy)}

The latest push to open a commercial casino at Lake of the Ozarks has come up short, as organizers failed to gather enough signatures to get their proposal on Missouri ballots this fall.

The proposal, which would have amended the Missouri Constitution to allow a casino in the popular tourism destination, was the latest effort by investors to expand casino gambling beyond the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in the state.

Investors Fail to Build on 2024’s Close Call

The group behind the casino effort is known as Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming. In 2024, the organization managed to get the constitutional question on the ballot after a legal fight over the validity of the signatures it collected. Yet that effort was still in vain, as voters in the state voted against the proposal by a 52.5% to 47.5% margin.

But backers of the casino project weren’t deterred. Investors felt their message didn’t reach voters effectively, and that they could correct those mistakes in a second effort.

Along with finding that many Missouri voters associated their casino effort with a Native American casino in the same area being built by the Osage Nation, backers of the commercial project cited opposition from other gaming groups – particularly Caesars and Penn National – as a reason for failure in 2024, when Bally’s was a 50 percent partner in the Lake of the Ozarks casino project.

“Our initial polling showed Missourians in favor of…Amendment 5 (78% to 22%). By the time Caesars’ campaign was over our polls showed us in a dead heat,” investor Andy Prewitt told the Lake Ozark Board of Aldermen in November 2025. “We want all of the gaming companies in the state to be in favor of our ballot measure and more importantly not spend money against our campaign. We have had initial conversations with Bally’s and Caesars and both are interested in partnering with us and both have committed not to spend money against our campaign.”

New Rules Could Sink Lake of the Ozarks Casino for Good

Yet after using a new signature-collection agency for the 2026 bid, Prewitt acknowledged that they weren’t able to gather more than 200,000 signatures to get on the ballot this November.

“After careful consideration, Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming has made the difficult decision to pause the 2026 initiative petition campaign for a convention center with casino at Lake of the Ozarks,” Prewitt told LakeExpo. “Our commitment to this project and the community it would serve has not wavered. We believe the strongest campaigns are built on the right foundation at the right time, and we will continue working toward that moment.”

But the effort to bring that vision to life now faces an uphill battle. The Lake Ozark Board of Alderman unanimously approved the Osage Nation casino last November, which may lower the appetite for a second casino in the region. And a different ballot question will ask voters to consider a change to the initiative petition process, one that would now require any further amendments to gain majority approval in each of the state’s eight congressional districts rather than simply carrying the statewide vote.