Arkansas casino group plans campaign in face of poor poll results

James Jefferson

Thursday, Oct. 5, 2000 | 3:54 a.m.

LITTLE ROCK - On the day that a poll showed that around half of Arkansas' residents oppose efforts to expand gambling in the state, backers of a constitutional amendment unveiled plans for casinos they hope to open one day.

Amendment 5 would grant Arkansas Casino Corp. permission to build casinos in six counties, set up a lottery and regulate bingo. Its backers say proceeds would eliminate the sales tax on groceries and fund college scholarships for all Arkansas high school graduates.

But a poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research late last month showed that 51 percent of Arkansas opposed Amendment 5, 37 percent would vote "Yes" and 12 percent were undecided.

The poll of 627 registered voters, conducted Sept. 26-28 for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of Little Rock and The Morning News of Springdale, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

The Amendment 5 campaign on Thursday unveiled an artist's renderings of the casinos, one of which appeared to have a London motif, with a big clock tower, and others that looked like big resorts.

Longtime Democratic Party operative Glen Hooks, who is running the pro-Amendment 5 campaign, said the poll figures weren't a deterrent to the campaign.

"I intend to run an intensive media campaign and an extensive grassroots campaign over the next 32 days," Hooks said. "We're going to be at every festival, at every block party, on the air with TV and radio. And we're going to be doing intensive get-out-the-vote efforts just like any other political campaign."

"We want to make sure the people of Arkansas are educated about Amendment 5. When they are educated, our polls show, that they're going to go for it," he said.

Anti-gambling groups have fought previous efforts to expand gambling, which now is limited to pari-mutuel wagering at Oaklawn Park thoroughbred track in Hot Springs and Southland Greyhound Park at West Memphis.

A casino proposal in 1996 won just 39 percent of the vote.