Bally’s Ozarks Casino Bet Lost the Lake

Bally’s Corporation put its name on a 20-story hotel tower for a Lake of the Ozarks casino on Sept. 24, 2024. Local investors showed the art to Lake Ozark aldermen and asked Missouri to add a 14th riverboat license on the Osage River. Two years later the commercial project is off the ballot, Bally’s is off the drawings, and a federal signature-gathering suit is what remains of the campaign.

The winner at the lake is not a Bally’s boat. It is the Osage Nation’s Class II plan on the old Quality Inn site, which never needed a statewide vote.

A 20-Story Tower on a Highway 54 Quarry

Osage River Gaming & Convention, a local investor group, walked into the Lake Ozark Board of Aldermen meeting with artist views of a hotel, a conference hall, and retail around a casino floor. Bally’s was the named operating partner. The company already ran Bally’s Kansas City Casino still on the books, and the Ozarks pitch was a second Missouri flag.

The building would not sit on the lake. The site, announced in November 2023, was a quarried tract along Highway 54 near the Lake of the Ozarks sign, inside city limits and close to the Osage River below Bagnell Dam. Missouri’s constitution already limited commercial gambling boats to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, so the pictures were campaign props for a ballot fight, not a building permit.

The 2024 packet showed a 20-story tower over the highway, large parking fields, and meeting space sold as year-round work for a seasonal tourist town. Campaign materials put permanent jobs at at least 700. State estimates printed with the measure put one-time government costs at $763,000, ongoing costs at $2.2 million a year, and annual gaming tax at $14.3 million, with fee revenue of $271,000 at the start and $2.1 million a year after that.

Amendment 5 Lost by 142,940 Votes

The measure on Nov. 5, 2024, was the Osage River gambling boat license initiative. It would have let the Missouri Gaming Commission issue one extra gambling-boat license on the Osage River between the Missouri River and Bagnell Dam, and it would have written that 14th license into the constitution.

A 2008 constitutional cap already froze commercial licenses at 13, which is why the group could not simply apply. The official map of Missouri’s 13 licensed casinos still runs from Kansas City and St. Joseph down the Missouri River and along the Mississippi through St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and Caruthersville. None of those boats is at the lake.

The group turned in more than 320,000 signatures on May 5, 2024. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said on Aug. 13 that the petition had not met the rules. A later signature fight put the question on the ballot anyway. Campaign finance reports show the yes side raised nearly $6.5 million.

CERTIFIED AMENDMENT 5 RESULTS

Certified totals from Dec. 12, 2024, show 1,523,889 no votes and 1,380,949 yes votes. The gap is 142,940 ballots, a five-point loss on a night when Missouri also passed sports betting.

Bally’s Name Brought a $10 Million Fight

Investor Andy Prewitt later told Lake Ozark aldermen that Bally’s held a 50% partner stake in the 2024 group. He said that choice pushed other Missouri operators, including Caesars and Penn, toward a vote-no campaign. The group’s own later count put opposition spending at $10 million.

Our initial polling showed Missourians in favor of Osage River Gaming and Convention’s Amendment 5 (78% Yes, 22% No). By the time Caesars campaign was over our polls showed us in a dead heat (49% Yes, 51% No). We ended up losing the campaign by 5%.

Andy Prewitt, investor, Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, to Lake Ozark aldermen, December 2025

Prewitt said the no campaign “worked.” American Gaming Association figures for 2025 put Missouri’s 13 riverboats at $2.08 billion in commercial casino revenue and $470.3 million in gaming tax, at a 21% tax rate. A 14th license with Bally’s already named as operator was a direct threat to that closed list, which is why dropping the brand became the 2025 strategy.

Lake Ozark Backed Two Casinos on One Night

The same investors came back in 2025 under a new name, Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming. New art took the Bally’s mark off the tower. Prewitt said the group wanted every in-state operator on the sidelines, and that Bally’s and Caesars had both talked about a later partnership and had both said they would not spend against the next petition.

On Nov. 12, 2025, the Board of Aldermen voted twice. It approved deals with the Osage Nation for a hotel-casino at Bagnell Dam Boulevard and Osage Beach Parkway. It then passed a resolution backing the private group’s quarry site east of Highway 54. Developer Jeff Tegethoff joined as an investor and lead builder, standing with Gary Prewitt, whose local credits include Prewitt’s Point and Eagles’ Landing.

The 2025 commercial packet described a 164,000-square-foot casino-hotel with 300 rooms, a 150,000-square-foot convention center, and retail next door. City support still could not write a 14th license. Only a statewide constitution change could do that, and the clock for a November 2026 question started with another signature drive.

Petition Signatures Stopped in April 2026

Prewitt told aldermen the group needed 200,247 verified signatures by May 15, 2026, and that starting earlier would avoid the 2024 secretary of state fight. The second campaign did not get that far.

THE COMMERCIAL CASINO CLOCK

1. 2020: Osage River Gaming and Conventions begins asking the General Assembly to put an Osage River casino on the ballot. Four legislative tries go nowhere.
2. 2023: The group shifts to a voter petition and names Bally’s as development partner for the Highway 54 quarry.
3. Sept. 24, 2024: Renderings go to the Lake Ozark Board of Aldermen.
4. Nov. 5, 2024: Amendment 5 fails, 52.5% to 47.5%.
5. Nov. 12, 2025: Aldermen back both the Osage Nation deals and a commercial resolution. Bally’s is no longer the named partner.
6. March 2026: Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming hires Groundgame Political Solutions LLC as a second signature contractor.
7. April 2026: The group tells Groundgame to stop. The May 15 filing deadline is missed. There is no commercial casino question on the November 2026 ballot.

Six years of lobbying, petitioning, and operator talks produced no license. The American Gaming Association still counts 13 commercial casinos in Missouri, the same cap the 2024 measure tried to crack.

A $1.6 Million Suit Over Unpaid Signatures

Groundgame Political Solutions LLC, owned by Meghan Cox, filed a diversity contract case on June 5, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The docket is 2:26-cv-04127, assigned to Senior District Judge M. Douglas Harpool. The opening complaint runs 129 pages. An amended complaint was filed July 28, 2026.

Defendants named in coverage of the filing include Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, Andrew Prewitt, Jeffrey Tegethoff, Anna Tegethoff, Signature GLP LLC, the AET 2021 Irrevocable Trust, Ramis Gheith, and unnamed others. The complaint seeks $1,611,550.24 plus interest, or that sum plus $30,000 in liquidated damages and late fees, plus attorney costs. The company says it billed about $2.3 million, was paid $710,000, and is owed about $1.5 million for work already done. Cox says she put up more than $1 million of her own money to keep canvassers in the field.

WHAT THE COMPLAINT ALLEGES

• Emergency hire: Groundgame says it was brought in during March 2026 after the first canvassing firm looked unlikely to hit May 15.
• Promised money: The suit says investors pointed to a $20 million funding round and showed wire-transfer screenshots that, the complaint claims, were fabricated.
• Stop order: The campaign was called off in April, after Groundgame says it had already staffed a statewide signature push.
• Failed settlement: Talks produced a $1.4 million offer against a claimed balance near $1.6 million. The parties did not close.

Those are claims in a live case, not findings. Local coverage of the filing has been careful to say the defendants had not yet answered and that fraud has not been proved. The practical result is already on the calendar: Missouri will not vote on an Osage River commercial casino in November 2026.

Class II Machines Do Not Need Jefferson City

The Osage Nation bought the former Quality Inn ground at Bagnell Dam Boulevard and Osage Beach Parkway and asked the Interior Department to take about 29 acres into trust for a Class II casino-hotel, per the Bureau of Indian Affairs environmental assessment. City officials have already signed service and revenue deals. Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear signed two intergovernmental agreements with Lake Ozark in February 2026 covering water, sewer, police, and fire.

Returning to our ancestral lands in Missouri is deeply meaningful for our people, and we are grateful for the welcome we have received from the Lake of the Ozarks community.

Geoffrey Standing Bear, Principal Chief, Osage Nation

The commercial boat needed a constitution change because Missouri still ties state licenses to the Missouri and Mississippi. A tribal Class II house does not. Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the Nation can run electronic bingo-style machines on trust land without a new state license, though the secretary’s two-part determination still needs the Missouri governor’s concurrence before gaming can start.

TWO LAKE OZARK CASINO PATHS

The Nation also announced a visitors center at 1075 Bagnell Dam Boulevard, with exhibits, a coffee shop, and retail, aimed at late summer 2026. That building is a tourism and culture play, not a substitute for the trust decision. City officials have said a temporary gaming hall could open after federal approval while the full $100 million resort is built.

Bally’s, as of its annual report for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, listed 20 casinos worldwide and 19 U.S. land-based properties, including Kansas City. The Ozarks tower is not among them. The commercial group would need new money, a settled lawsuit, and a fourth run at a petition process that has now failed twice. Until Interior acts, the only casino still moving in Lake Ozark is the one that never asked Missouri voters for a 14th boat.