Lady Luck Gaming Corp.'s application for a Missouri Gaming Commission license to operate a riverboat casino at Scott City may be a statement of faith of that company's intent to invest in Southeast Missouri. Lady Luck made application Thursday.

However, under gaming commission guidelines, filing for a license to become one of the state's gaming operators isn't the horse race it once was.

"Filing positions were important at first," said Harold Bailey, a spokesman for the gaming commission. "During the first rounds, we looked at the projects as we received them."

Now, the commission looks at all the applications, regardless of when they were filed, Bailey said. "We then select the best projects that suit the needs of the state at the time."

The gaming commission has received 31 applications.

"We were not too concerned when we learned that Lady Luck has filed application for Scott City and the immediate Southeast Missouri area," said Mauntie Collins, a senior vice president and director of central region operations for Boyd Gaming Corp., which includes the Cape Girardeau area.

The Boyd company, headquartered in Las Vegas, earlier announced that it was delaying its application about a year for a Cape Girardeau permit.

"If we filed now, the application would have to set on a shelf for a year," Collins said. "During that time, things change, especially costs. We'd probably have to file a new application."

The city has received and is reviewing Boyd's development contract.

Boyd's delay was further explained by Bailey:

"Boyd officials were present at a commission meeting when we announced that we wanted to keep a watch on the Aztar operation before we selected another location for a Southeast Missouri operation. They knew they wouldn't be in this wave of projects."

Boyd, however, is on the list of two companies awaiting approval for licenses this summer.

"We hope to open our Kansas City operation late this summer," Collins said.

Boyd's Kansas City operation was scheduled to open this month, "but our boat is still in St. Louis," said Collins, who explained the river conditions were still too high to get the big riverboat into its Kansas City dock.

One of the requirements of the gaming commission is a mock gambling cruise, conducted aboard the riverboat.

The Lady Luck permit calls for a three-phrase, $65.3 million operation.

"Lady Luck's application didn't bother me," said David Knight, a Cape Girardeau businessman who has supported the gambling project since it started more than two years ago.

"The gaming commission doesn't promise anything just because they filed," Knight said. "There's a lot of applications in the hopper now."

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III agrees.

"I think it would be premature to speculate on Lady Luck simply because an application has been filed," Spradling said. "I don't think it will have any effect on Cape Girardeau."

Spradling said he was surprised that Scott City approved a development contract that would allow a company to start gambling operations before all the ground projects were completed.

Lady Luck has said it could start gambling operations within six months from the time it received a license from the gaming commission. The early operation would include a boat and parking lot. The remainder of the project, entertainment center, outlet mall, athletic complex with tennis courts, community center and library at Scott City, would be completed over a two- to three-year period.

The application is Lady Luck's second one filed with the gaming commission. More than a year ago, the company filed application for a license in Jefferson County near Kimmswick.

"We're in the `queue' with two applications now," a company spokesman said Friday.

There were some concerned Boyd supporters, however. The downtown Cape Girardeau office received a number of calls in response to the Lady Luck filing.

The Cape Girardeau-Boyd development contract, under study now by city officials, calls for all ground facilities to be ready to open before the riverboat casino starts operations.

The gaming commission voted in early June to process just two riverboat gambling proposals over the next 12 to 18 months. The commission is looking at three companies for two licenses -- Station Casinos Inc., for a casino to be built in Kansas City; and Harrah's Maryland Heights Corp. and Players' Maryland Heights Inc., for a joint venture in a casino project in west St. Louis County.

Two other companies were already being investigated for consideration. Boyd Gaming Corp. and Hilton Corp. have started construction for casino operations, expected to open late this summer.

The commission did leave open the possibility of adding others within the 18-month period but didn't specify which ones or when.

Since riverboat gambling was legalized in 1992, the commission has licensed six casinos -- two in the Kansas City area and one each in St. Louis, St. Charles, St. Joseph and Caruthersville.