Residents of Jefferson City voted not to overturn the law banning casino gambling in their city. The law banning Casino Gambling was passed in 1995.

According to unofficial results from the Cole County Board of Elections more then 60 percent of those who came out to vote were against the idea of allowing river boats to operate casinos on the Missouri River in their capital city.

The proposition to reverse the ban on casino and riverboat gambling, known as prop B was passed in 1995. Prop B received less then 10,000 votes or 40 percent to repeal the ban in Tuesdays vote.

Another proposal named Prop C was to allow only floating casinos to open and not land based casino gambling also failed to pass. Both proposals failed by almost 25 percent.

The defeat on both propositions are attributed to a group of church, business and civic leaders from the community who worried that the opening of casinos floating or not would destroy the small town feeling of Jefferson City, and even though they admit the casinos would bring in much money to the community, it would be at the expense of others.

%u201CI%u2019m ecstatic,%u201D said the head of the Citizens Supporting Integrity, the leading opposition group. %u201CThe voters of Jefferson City just do not want to have casinos in our town.%u201D

No casinos have shown a desire to open their doors in Jefferson City, the proposals to reverse the casino prohibition was made from a desire to boost the City's economy without help from the state budget.

The vote was driven by a desire to boost the city%u2019s economy beyond its reliance on state government. No casino companies have approached the city about a project.