Missouri: Mark Twain Casino Drew Two Proposed Fines as Commission Lawyer Anticipated Further Cases

Missouri gaming regulators voted on August 26, 2026, to propose two more fines against Mark Twain Casino in La Grange. At the same meeting, a commission lawyer said he expected more cases against the casino in the coming months.

The Missouri Gaming Commission voted 4-0 to adopt two preliminary orders against HGI-Mark Twain, LLC, which does business as Mark Twain Casino and is controlled by Affinity Interactive. Each order proposes a $5,000 fine, for a combined $10,000.

One order says the casino’s surveillance department did not send required daily logs to state agents for about three weeks in 2025. The other says the casino could not document what happened to the jackpot money on a slot machine it removed in 2024.

Game Empress read both orders, the commission’s earlier orders against the casino and the transcript of the August 26 meeting.

“They’re getting off a little light”

The sharpest words came from a commissioner. After Deputy General Counsel Tom Venneman presented the second case, Commissioner Sam Gladney said that, frankly, he thought the casino was “getting off a little light here.” He still voted yes. But he asked whether the commission was seeing a pattern, and whether its actions were getting the casino’s attention.

Venneman said the commission’s informal Disciplinary Review Board had discussed those concerns when developing the proposed fines. “We have seen some violations frequently from this casino, but I believe we will be addressing more of those in coming months,” he said.

Gladney called the problems unacceptable. Commissioner Roger Stottlemyre, who led the meeting in the absence of Chairman Jan Zimmerman, said it was good for the community to hear those concerns. Commissioners Kevin Spaulding and Kevin Cantwell also voted for both orders.

Three weeks without surveillance logs

The first case, DC-26-090, is about a daily report. Under the commission’s internal control standards, the surveillance shift log must go to the commission’s on-site supervisor every day. On October 7, 2025, state agents determined they had received no logs since September 17.

The order is about logs that were not sent. It does not say the casino’s cameras stopped recording.

The order describes “inconsistent explanations.” First, a compliance specialist called the gap an internal oversight. She later said the former surveillance manager used to prompt staff to send the reports, and after he left, the department assumed others were handling it. Surveillance operators said in written statements that they thought they were still in compliance, because the logs sat on a server state agents could open.

The order also describes an email an investigator reviewed on January 10, 2026. In it, surveillance staff said they could not send the logs because their boss had taken the thumb drive needed to transfer them and they could not access his office to retrieve it.

The order says the investigation found “a lack of priority” in answering agents and “a lack of interest in maintaining compliance.” It also says communication from casino management “diminished considerably” during the investigation.

One machine’s jackpot money, unaccounted for

The second case, DC-26-091, came from a state audit of the casino. The audit covered October 2021 to October 2024 and was issued on December 31, 2024. It found that the casino could not account for the progressive jackpot funds from 23 machines that had dropped off its list of progressive games.

Auditors checked again in October 2025. This time, the casino could account for 30 of the 31 progressive machines it had removed or converted between September 2024 and September 2025.

That follow-up examined a separate group of removals and conversions; it does not establish that the earlier documentation problems involving 23 machines had all been resolved. The order says information the casino later provided about those 23 machines “has remained unverified.”

The one exception among the 31 was a machine taken off the floor on November 15, 2024. A request about it in the commission’s machine portal had been marked “cancelled.” The machine’s standalone jackpot held what the order calls “an unknown amount,” and the order says those funds were not accounted for.

The last reading the order cites, from November 1, 2024, showed $598.90 on that machine’s “Major” jackpot meter. The order says there is no documentation that the money was moved to another machine when it was removed, as the commission’s rules require.

Three proposed fines this year, and a longer record

A separate preliminary order, DC-26-068, listed under the commission’s June 24 meeting, proposed a $5,000 fine over a promotional date mix-up.

According to the order, the marketing director changed the promotion to October 10–11, 2025, after discovering those dates on a mailer and assuming all mailers contained the same printing error. However, 87 patrons had received offers showing the originally intended October 13–14 dates. The casino identified seven accounts with play on those dates that had not received the advertised $250 in free slot play.

When we checked on October 19, the commission’s website did not list minutes for the June meeting.

Together, the three 2026 orders proposed $15,000 in fines. The casino has been here before:

• A December 2025 order proposed $25,000 over repeated security-department violations, including officers who did not sign a required access log. It says the casino was fined $10,000 on June 26, 2024, for training problems in the same department, and that those concerns were “ongoing.”
• A May 2025 order proposed $10,000 over discrepancies between several promotions’ published rules and their implementation, found in a review covering the same audit period.
• A June 2022 order proposed $25,000 in a case that began with a review of table-game dealer errors.

Mark Twain is not the only Missouri casino with progressive jackpot problems. On September 23, the commission considered a $5,000 proposed fine against Harrah’s Kansas City. That order says progressive jackpot funds remained unavailable for patron play because they were not transferred from out-of-service machines within 30 days, the casino’s third violation of the same rule in 10 months.

What the records don’t show yet

The three published documents are titled preliminary orders for disciplinary action. Under the commission’s disciplinary rule, a licensee has 30 days from mailing to request a hearing; otherwise, the proposed order becomes final. The records reviewed for this article do not establish whether hearing requests were filed or whether the penalties were paid.

Game Empress emailed Affinity Interactive on October 17 to ask whether the casino has accepted the fines and what it has changed since. We will add any response.

Neither the September 23 nor October 14 published agenda named a new disciplinary action against Mark Twain. The October 14 agenda’s substantive business was a closed session. We will update this story if the commission brings the further cases Venneman described.

If gambling is causing problems for you or someone you know, the Missouri Gaming Commission lists a free problem gambling helpline: 1-800-GAMBLER.