Missouri Sports Betting Ballot Measure Approved By Voters

Missouri voters authorized legal mobile and retail sports betting, allowing controlled books to take bets next year.

The sports betting wagering tally measure gone by a slim majority early Wednesday morning after more than 2.9 million votes were counted.

Seven of the 8 states bordering Missouri enable mobile or retail sportsbooks. That consists of Kansas and Illinois, which divided the Kansas City and St. Louis metro locations with Missouri, respectively.

Missouri is the 39th state to approve legal sportsbooks and the 31st to green light statewide mobile wagering. It is the only state to approve sports betting this year.

” Missouri has some of the very best sports betting fans worldwide and they showed up huge for their favorite groups on Election Day,” Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, said in a statement. “On behalf of all six of Missouri’s expert sports betting franchises, we wish to thank the Missouri voters who made their voices heard by approving Amendment 2. This historical vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legalize sports betting and ensures we no longer lose valuable tax profits to our neighboring states. Most notably, the passage of Amendment 2 suggests a brand-new, devoted, irreversible funding stream for Missouri classrooms.”

Missouri sports betting next steps

Voter approval indicates as much as 14 mobile sportsbooks might begin accepting bets next year. It is unlikely all 14 offered licenses are utilized.

DraftKings and FanDuel funded almost every dollar of the “yes” project and will unquestionably apply to take bets in the Show Me State. They will likely each pursue the two “untethered” licenses offered without needing to partner with a Missouri brick-and-mortar gambling establishment or sports betting team (and pay an accompanying charge).

Six licenses are offered to each Missouri casino operator, respectively. Caesars, regardless of opposing the tally procedure, will likely utilize its license to launch the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which handles ESPN Bet, and Bally’s (Bally Bet) will likewise likely launch their particular books.

The other 3 operators are Boyd Gaming, Century Casino, and Affinity Interactive. It stays uncertain if they will launch mobile sportsbooks.

The remaining 6 licenses are scheduled for each of the significant professional sports betting teams that play home video games in Missouri: MLB’s Kansas City Royals and Cardinals, the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, NHL’s St. Louis Blues, MLS’ St. Louis City SC and the NWSL’s Kansas City Current. The sports betting organizations were among the most popular proponents of the ballot procedure.

Together with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri wagerers ought to anticipate other prominent nationwide brand names including BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to look for market gain access to.

Launch possibility tiers IF Missouri citizens approve sports betting wagering:

Guarantees: FanDuel, DraftKings
Locks: BetMGM, Bally Bet
Highly likely: Fanatics, bet365, ESPN BET
Are Already Live In Illinois, So Yeah(?): BetRivers, Acid Rock, Circa
Opposed Referendum But Still Might: Caesars

Missouri’s tally step allows every Missouri casino to open retail sportsbooks on their particular homes. Most if not all 13 casinos handled by the 6 gambling establishment operators are anticipated to open in-person sports betting alternatives such as sports betting kiosks and possibly committed, full-service sportsbooks.

The six sports betting teams can likewise open in-person sportsbooks within or adjacent to their respective home playing places. Missouri will sign up with Illinois, Maryland, Arizona, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. among jurisdictions that allow in-stadium retail sportsbooks.

The language around the ballot procedure requires the first licensed sportsbooks to begin accepting wagers by Dec. 1, 2025. Operators will likely deal with regulators to go live before kick-off of the fall 2025 football season, continually books’ most rewarding time of the sports betting calendar.

Missouri sports betting background

The effective Missouri sports betting wagering project comes in spite of millions in funding opposing the step from one of the state’s largest sports betting stakeholders.

Caesars invested millions of dollars to beat the procedure. In a lot of other states that connect online sports betting with a state’s brick-and-mortar gambling establishments, an operator is approved a minimum of one license per managed residential or commercial property.

In that scenario in Missouri, Caesars would be managed a minimum of 3 potential licenses, one for each gambling establishment it handles. Instead, Caesars just has one. In states with the license-per-property design, business can either open extra in-house books or, more commonly, farm out the license to a competitor that pays an accompanying fee in exchange.

FanDuel and DraftKings, which have roughly two-thirds of U.S. nationwide sports betting wagering manage market share, might potentially have a leg up on their rivals by earning the set of untethered licenses. It stays to be seen which two books will make these slots, however the language around the tally procedure would appear to prefer the two national market leaders.

earlier in the year revealed the “yes” vote with a minor lead. Support efforts were boosted by 10s of millions spent by DraftKings and FanDuel.

A series of tv and radio advertisements focused on the profits legal sportsbooks would create for Missouri public education. Opponents, funded largely by Caesars, argued the advocates’ advertisements were misleading and the 10s of countless predicted dollars raised would have a minimal effect in a state that currently spends billions on education yearly.