Strange Bedfellows

In Arkansas, gambling opponents took over $21M from Choctaw Nation to fight competing casino

As the old saying goes, “politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Casino photo by Kaysha, Unsplash, Creative Commons / Inserts: First Baptist Church Russellville, Choctaw Nation, Larry Walker

That proverb fits a situation in Arkansas involving a proposition to allow casino gambling, where an anti-gambling group led by church leaders took casino-interest money to fight a competing casino from entering the state.

The story begins in 2018 when Arkansas approved an amendment to the state constitution that would allow casino gambling in four counties: Crittenden, Garland, Pope, and Jefferson.

That opened the door for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which operates at least eight casinos in that state, to seek a casino license in Pope County, Ark. However, it was not chosen as the casino operator by officials.

From the beginning, some residents of Pope County had opposed building a casino there. During the November 2018 election, Pope County also passed an ordinance that restricted the ability of the county judge to approve a casino without also seeking voter approval.

In 2019, however, an Arkansas circuit court declared the ordinance unconstitutional and void.

Pope County residents did not give up, and continued to create anti-gambling groups to oppose a casino in the county.

At least two leaders of these anti-gambling groups involved in opposing casinos are affiliated with First Baptist Church of Russellville: Pastor Larry Walker and Deacon Jim Knight.

Walker, the finance and administrative pastor on the First Baptist Russellville staff, has given his time and effort to anti-casino groups that accepted money from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Walker admitted in a court affidavit that he has been “active in efforts to curb gambling…in Pope County, Arkansas” since 2018 and that he has provided pro bono accounting and legal services to further that aim.

Knight, a deacon at First Baptist Church of Russellville, was president of two anti-gambling groups: Fair Play for Arkansas in 2022 and Local Voters in Charge in 2024.

During the lead up to the 2018 election to allow casinos in the state, in a sermon on October 28, 2018, First Baptist Russellville Pastor Greg Sykes preached against gambling, saying he believed the casino interest to be “pure, unadulterated wickedness at its origins.”

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In 2022, Fair Play for Arkansas was formed and proposed a constitutional amendment to remove Pope County from the list of counties where casinos could be located. It took $4 million from the Choctaw Nation in order to stop a casino in Pope County. The Choctaw Nation owns a casino only 1 hour and 17 minutes from where a potentially competing casino could have been built in Pope County.

In an email to potential supporters of a 2022 ballot question against the casino, Walker acknowledged the strange partnership between Fair Play for Arkansas and the Choctaw Nation but claimed they shared a common interest.

“Although the partnership may seem strange and though some may object, through much prayer and deliberation our leadership determined that this arrangement was the most prudent way forward and in the end our desired outcome was the same…no casino in Pope County,” Walker wrote.

He encouraged voters to return their completed petition packets to the reception desk at First Baptist Church Russellville.

However, Fair Play for Arkansas was not allowed on the ballot by the election commission, which believed the proposition omitted necessary information that could change a voter’s mind.

In 2024, anti-gambling advocates tried again, forming Local Voters in Charge and securing enough signatures to get on the November ballot. This time the amendment, known as Issue 2, passed, and was successful in removing Pope County as an authorized location for casinos in Arkansas and requiring future casino licenses to be approved by voters in the county where it would be located.

The Choctaw Nation casino in Pocola, Okla., straddles the Oklahoma/Arkansas state line has a lot to lose — about $12 million annually — from the competition of another nearby casino, according to the federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Issue 2.

According to a finance document filed Oct. 29, 2024, with the Arkansas Ethics Commission, Local Voters in Charge received $17.7 million from the Choctaw Nation during 2024 as it campaigned for a new amendment to stop Pope County casinos. Much of the money was used for media placement, direct mail, and polling services, the document shows.

During the 2024 effort, Walker penned a letter to Arkansas voters asking them to vote in favor of Issue 2 that would remove Pope County as an authorized location for casino gambling, and calling out the “moral and dire consequences” of casinos.

“As citizens of Pope County, citizens of Arkansas, and citizens in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus, we believe that amending the Arkansas Constitution through Issue 2 is the right fix for Arkansas. It makes right the wrong that was done to Pope County in 2018 and provides Arkansas counties protection in the future,” Walker signed the letter with his title as administrative pastor of First Baptist Church in Russellville.

In his court affidavit, Walker asserts that the partnership with Choctaw is one where “all parties involved seemed to share the common interest that Pope County not be designated as a location for a casino.”

The Arkansas Baptist State Convention, of which Sykes was formerly president, met in October 2024 and passed a resolution to support the Local Voters in Charge ballot measure.

The resolution encouraged “all Arkansas Baptists to support their brothers and sisters in Pope County as they continue to fight to save their county from the ills of the casino gaming industry; and, be it finally resolved, that Arkansas Baptists reaffirm their position to make every effort to assist in fighting against the casino industry through prayer and by voting for Issue 2 and advocating in favor of Issue 2.”

The resolution contained no mention of the Choctaw Nation’s funding of Issue 2 and the Local Voters in Charge effort.

In a commentary in the Russellville Courier News, Hans Stiritz, the spokesperson and an officer of Local Voters in Charge, discussed the ill effects that casinos have on the local community. “Negative economic effects from gambling are well documented nationally, as are negative social impacts like crime, addiction, and social dependence,” he wrote.

MinistryWatch reached out to Walker for comment about the ballot measure efforts, but Stiritz, replied by declining to comment “in light of ongoing litigation in federal court over the passage of Arkansas Issue 2, now Amendment 104.”

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