Takeaways
- Missouri voters approved sports betting in November. But it won’t be ready for the Super Bowl. And it isn’t on pace to be ready for MLB’s opening day.
- The Missouri Gaming Commission is working through the regulatory process, but staff are handling it alongside other duties.
- Missouri has missed out on revenue from sports betting during major events like the Super Bowl, but it’s a small amount in comparison to the state’s budget.
This is the last Super Bowl that Missouri will miss out on money from sports betting.
Sports betting was approved by voters in November, but the rulemaking process to bring sports betting to Missouri still isn’t finished.
It won’t be ready before the Chiefs play Sunday in the Super Bowl. And it likely won’t be ready when the Royals play on opening day in Major League Baseball. It’s currently projected to be up and running sometime this summer.
“It may take us a minute to make sure that we’re ready to bring that on,” Jan Zimmerman, chair of the Missouri Gaming Commission, told The Beacon in September before the amendment passed.
The gaming commission regulates sports betting. It doesn’t make new laws, but it needs to lay out regulations for betting companies. Then come businesses applying for licenses and background checks of those companies.
The gaming commission told The Beacon it can’t really estimate how far into the process it is. Some regulations have been sent to the governor’s office to approve.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office hasn’t replied to questions on the set of regulations it has.
There is no singular holdup, the gaming commission said, just a lot of things for people to do. Zimmerman previously told The Beacon that all this work to establish regulations will be done by staff who have other jobs and responsibilities to do.
So far, it has been about 95 days since the constitutional amendment to legalize sports gambling passed in Missouri. In Kansas, it took about 75 days from the day sports betting was signed into law by Gov. Laura Kelly to the first day of legal betting.
The two states followed different paths to legalization.
Kansas legalized sports gambling through a law voted on by lawmakers in 2022. That meant hearings, debates and amendments over the course of a legislative session.
Missouri lawmakers tried to legalize sports gambling themselves, but they couldn’t agree to a final proposal. Missouri voters in November legalized sports betting through the ballot box.
The delay in legalization means Missouri has missed out on revenue from multiple Super Bowls and playoff runs.
Kansas collected $600,000 in sports betting revenue during the Chiefs 2023 playoff run and $1.7 million during the 2024 NFL playoffs. All told, there was about $840 million in settled wagers during January and February of 2023 and 2024 combined.
In the context of a $52 billion state budget, Missouri would likely see a relatively small return on sports betting like Kansas does. Kansas will likely see a drop in revenue from sports betting next year.
The Beacon reported that Missourians flock to the Sunflower State to place a sports bet and leave. With sports betting legal in Missouri, they won’t need to cross state lines to place a bet.
Problem gambling? Find resources in Kansas or Missouri to help.
