Cape Girardeau Chosen for Casino
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| Despite today's news, the rendering of the Cape Girardeau casino has always included fireworks. |
The southeastern Missouri city beat out competing bids from Kansas City and St. Louis. The latter called for a hotel and casino near the site of the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge that was to employ nearly 600 people.
That said, today's decision was hardly a surprise after a study by the Missouri Department of Economic Development determined that the Cape Girardeau "Isle of Capri" casino would generate the most new gambling revenue for the state -- $76 million per year compared to $56 million and $21 million for the St. Louis and K.C. projects, respectively.
Here's an interesting caveat, though, with the Cape Girardeau casino. Yesterday Cape Girardeau confirmed that a petition drive had collected enough signatures to place a smoking-ban on the April ballot.
Unlike St. Louis smoking bans, the proposed ban in Cape Girardeau would prohibit smoking inside casinos.
How such a ban could impact Cape Girardeau's new casino remains to be seen, but across the river in Illinois a smoking ban at casinos has cost the state millions in lost revenue. In fact, Illinois legislators are now pushing to exempt casinos from the ban.
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