HENRY COUNTY, Iowa — Three months after the groundbreaking of the Cedar Crossing Casino, the ongoing legal battle with Riverside Casino continues in Henry County court.
Due to courtroom scheduling and availability, legal counsels from both sides met in Mount Pleasant for a hearing for the Riverside petition challenging the Linn County gaming license.
For more than a decade, Cedar Rapids has tried for a casino. Riverside has been outspokenly against it since the start.
Wednesday also marked three months and a day since the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission granted a gaming license to Linn County.
Riverside’s legal counsel argued the state board did not have the legal authority to approve the license due to a miswording in the county’s 2021 vote to continue gambling, but there were no existing gambling facilities.
“They made a mistake. They botched the election, and it happened in a misleading way,” Riverside attorney Mark Weinhardt said. “It happened in a way that was really close where a swing of one voter in 20 changes the outcome.”
But Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said voters made it clear they wanted a casino.
“I think it’s incredibly insulting to the voters in Linn County that we’re even here having this conversation, that we were somehow confused about ballot language that we twice approved,” O’Donnell said.
Legal counsel for Cedar Crossing said they haven’t heard from any voters about concerns from the election nearly four years ago.
“Did a single person at any point from 2021 to 2025 come in and say, ‘We were horribly misled by this ballot language, we didn’t understand this ballot language?’ Not a single person said that,” IRGC attorney Jeff Peterzalek said.
The decision now rests with a judge who will determine if Cedar Rapids keeps the license and continues casino construction.
“No competitor in Iowa has challenged a license before,” Cedar Rapids Development Group attorney Mark Holscher said. “No court has ever said, you have standing to say, ‘You can’t compete in another county.'”
“I understand that lots and lots of people in Cedar Rapids want this casino, and the 2021 referendum shows there are also many people who don’t want the casino,” Weinhardt said. “But the law is the law.”
The case is fast-tracked, so the judge is expected to make a final decision in the coming days.
Cedar Crossing is scheduled to open December 31, 2026.
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