I’ve been involved extensively in recent weeks with efforts associated with attempts to bring a casino to our county. Almost all of what I do is on a Facebook group called Pope County Majority. In the last 90 days, I have 242 posts there. While many of those have been shares of related news article, I’ve also created quite a bit of original content.
The casino’s parent organization is Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB). They own and operate 10 gaming facilities and a large number of non-gaming interests. Their only shareholder is the Cherokee Nation which receives 37% of net revenue for funding programs and facilities that benefit the tribe. The rest of the revenue goes back into CNB for growth and development. Even though ground has yet to be broken, they have already proven to be a valuable community partner here.
Naturally, there has been – and continues to be – opposition to the casino, primarily from one group who has used a number of different organizational names over the last couple of years: Citizens for Local Choice, Concerned Citizens of Pope County, Citizens for a Better Pope County, Pope County Decides, United Pope County, United for a Better Pope County, United Pope County for Accountability, Fair Play for Arkansas, and, now, Fair Play for Arkansas – 2022.
As Fair Play for Arkansas – 2022, they are running a petition drive trying to get an issue on this year’s general election state-wide that would, if passed, alter the state constitution to remove the authorization for a casino in our county. They have a Facebook page and a single page website fairplayforarkansas dot org with a brief description of their allegations opposing the casino and a form for visitors to fill out so for more information. While they are largely religion based, they are accepting huge financial support from Choctaw Gaming of Oklahoma
One of the things that I’ve done is to co-opt a couple of domain names similar to theirs in the hope that I can steal some of their almost zero traffic and, perhaps, influence some to not sign the petition.
https://fairplayforarkansas.net/ and
https://fairplayforarkansas2022.com/
