Texan petitions for casino here

The Texan who tried in 2006 to get voters to authorize casinos he would own in Boone and six other Arkansas counties, is trying again.

Michael Wasserman of Gainesville, Texas, and his Arkansas Resorts and Hotels, failed to get the required 80,570 signatures to put the issue on the 2006 ballot, announcing after six months that he was stopping after the death of his sister.

The earlier ballot would also have authorized a state lottery and since the state now has that, voters would have to be willing to vote solely to give Wasserman's company a casino monopoly in Arkansas.

No other casinos would be allowed in the state and he would be able to open casinos with 24 hour drinking and gambling in dry Boone County as well as in the counties containing Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Hot Springs and West Memphis.

Hot Springs and West Memphis have operations that mimic casinos at their horse and dog tracks. Little Rock's county is the state's largest. The counties containing Texarkana, Fort Smith and West Memphis are border counties served by interstate highways.

Wasserman would pay a 5 percent state tax on his casinos with 60 percent going to state highways, and 20 percent each to aging programs and Arkansas Children's Hospital.