Missouri Sports Betting Ballot Measure Approved By Voters

Missouri citizens approved legal mobile and retail sports betting, permitting managed books to take bets next year.

The sports betting tally measure passed by a slim bulk 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 includes Kansas and Illinois, which split the Kansas City and St. Louis metro areas with Missouri, respectively.

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

” Missouri has a few of the best sports betting fans in the world and they showed up big for their preferred groups on Election Day,” Bill DeWitt III, of the St. Louis Cardinals, said in a statement. “On behalf of all 6 of Missouri’s professional sports betting franchises, we want to thank the Missouri citizens who made their voices heard by authorizing Amendment 2. This historical vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legislate sports betting and ensures we no longer lose important tax income to our surrounding states. Most notably, the passage of Amendment 2 implies a new, devoted, irreversible financing stream for Missouri classrooms.”

Missouri sports betting wagering next actions

Voter approval suggests approximately 14 mobile sportsbooks could begin accepting bets next year. It is unlikely all 14 offered licenses are used.

DraftKings and FanDuel financed nearly every dollar of the “yes” project and will undoubtedly use to take bets in the Show Me State. They will likely each pursue the two “untethered” licenses available without needing to partner with a Missouri brick-and-mortar gambling establishment or sports betting team (and pay an accompanying cost).

Six licenses are readily available to each Missouri casino operator, respectively. Caesars, in spite of opposing the tally measure, will likely use its license to introduce the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which handles ESPN Bet, and Bally’s (Bally Bet) will likewise likely introduce their respective books.

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

The remaining six licenses are reserved for each of the significant professional sports betting groups that play home 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 amongst the most prominent proponents of the ballot procedure.

In addition to DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri wagerers must anticipate other leading national brand names including BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to seek market gain access to.

Launch likelihood 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, Hard Rock, Circa
Opposed Referendum But Still Might: Caesars

Missouri’s tally step permits every Missouri gambling establishment to open retail sportsbooks on their respective homes. Most if not all 13 casinos managed by the 6 gambling establishment operators are expected to open in-person sports betting choices such as wagering kiosks and possibly devoted, full-service sportsbooks.

The 6 sports betting groups can also open in-person sportsbooks within or surrounding to their respective home playing locations. Missouri will join Illinois, Maryland, Arizona, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. amongst jurisdictions that allow in-stadium retail sportsbooks.

The language around the tally measure 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, perennially books’ most lucrative time of the sports betting calendar.

Missouri sports betting background

The successful Missouri sports betting project comes despite millions in financing opposing the procedure from one of the state’s largest gambling stakeholders.

Caesars spent countless dollars to beat the measure. In many other states that tie online sports betting wagering with a state’s brick-and-mortar casinos, an operator is granted a minimum of one license per handled home.

Because situation in Missouri, Caesars would be afforded a minimum of 3 potential licenses, one for each casino it handles. Instead, Caesars only has one. In states with the license-per-property design, companies can either open extra in-house books or, more frequently, subcontract 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 deal with market share, might possibly have an upper hand on their competitors by making the set of untethered licenses. It stays to be seen which 2 books will earn these slots, but the language around the tally step would appear to prefer the 2 national market leaders.

Polling earlier in the year showed the “yes” vote with a minor lead. Support efforts were bolstered by tens of millions spent by DraftKings and FanDuel.

A series of television and radio ads concentrated on the revenue legal sportsbooks would produce for Missouri public education. Opponents, funded mainly by Caesars, argued the advocates’ advertisements were misleading and the 10s of millions of projected dollars raised would have a negligible effect in a state that already invests billions on education annually.