Missouri citizens approved legal mobile and retail sports betting, allowing controlled books to take bets next year.
The sports betting ballot procedure gone by a slim majority early Wednesday morning after more than 2.9 million votes were counted.
Seven of the eight states surrounding Missouri allow mobile or retail sportsbooks. That includes Kansas and Illinois, which divided the Kansas City and St. Louis city locations with Missouri, respectively.
Missouri is the 39th state to authorize 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 some of the very best sports betting fans worldwide and they showed up big for their favorite teams on Election Day," Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, stated in a declaration. "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 authorizing Amendment 2. This historical vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legalize sports betting and guarantees we no longer lose important tax income to our neighboring states. Most notably, the passage of Amendment 2 indicates a new, devoted, irreversible funding stream for Missouri classrooms."
Missouri sports betting next steps
Voter approval means as much as 14 mobile sportsbooks might start accepting bets next year. It is unlikely all 14 offered licenses are used.
DraftKings and FanDuel financed almost every dollar of the "yes" project and will certainly apply to take bets in the Show Me State. They will likely each pursue the two "untethered" licenses readily available without having to partner with a Missouri brick-and-mortar casino or sports betting team (and pay an accompanying cost).
Six licenses are available to each Missouri gambling establishment operator, respectively. Caesars, despite opposing the ballot measure, will likely utilize its license to release the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which handles ESPN Bet, and Bally's (Bally Bet) will likewise likely release their respective books.
The other 3 operators are Boyd Gaming, Century Casino, and Affinity Interactive. It stays unclear if they will introduce mobile sportsbooks.
The remaining six licenses are reserved for each of the significant professional sports betting groups 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 prominent proponents of the ballot procedure.
In addition to DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri gamblers should expect other prominent nationwide brands including BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to look for market access.
Launch probability tiers IF Missouri citizens authorize sports betting:
Guarantees: FanDuel, DraftKings
Locks: BetMGM, Bally Bet
Most 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 procedure enables every Missouri gambling establishment to open retail sportsbooks on their respective residential or commercial properties. Most if not all 13 casinos managed by the six gambling establishment operators are expected to open in-person sports betting options such as wagering kiosks and potentially dedicated, full-service sportsbooks.
The 6 sports betting groups can also open in-person sportsbooks within or surrounding to their particular home playing places. Missouri will sign up with Illinois, Maryland, Arizona, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. amongst jurisdictions that allow in-stadium retail sportsbooks.
The language around the tally step needs 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 financially rewarding time of the sports betting calendar.
Missouri sports betting wagering 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 step. In many other states that connect online sports betting with a state's brick-and-mortar gambling establishments, an operator is granted a minimum of one license per managed residential or commercial property.
In that scenario in Missouri, Caesars would be afforded at least 3 potential licenses, one for each gambling establishment it manages. Instead, Caesars just has one. In states with the license-per-property model, companies can either open extra internal books or, more typically, subcontract the license to a competitor that pays an accompanying cost in exchange.
FanDuel and DraftKings, which have approximately two-thirds of U.S. nationwide sports betting wagering handle market share, could possibly have a leg up on their competitors by earning the set of untethered licenses. It remains to be seen which 2 books will earn these slots, but the language around the ballot step would appear to prefer the 2 nationwide market leaders.
Polling previously in the year showed the "yes" vote with a minor lead. Support efforts were boosted by 10s of millions invested by DraftKings and FanDuel.
A series of tv and radio advertisements focused on the earnings legal sportsbooks would create for Missouri public education. Opponents, funded mostly by Caesars, argued the advocates' advertisements were deceptive and the 10s of countless predicted dollars raised would have a minimal effect in a state that already invests billions on education annually.
