Missouri citizens approved legal mobile and retail sports betting wagering, allowing controlled books to take bets next year.

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

Seven of the eight states surrounding Missouri enable mobile or retail sportsbooks. That consists of Kansas and Illinois, which split the Kansas City and St. Louis city areas 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 approve sports betting wagering this year.

" Missouri has some of the very best sports betting fans worldwide and they revealed up huge for their favorite teams on Election Day," Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, stated in a statement. "On behalf of all 6 of Missouri's expert sports betting franchises, we want to thank the Missouri voters who made their voices heard by authorizing Amendment 2. This historic vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legislate sports betting wagering and ensures we no longer lose important tax income to our neighboring states. Most notably, the passage of Amendment 2 means a new, devoted, permanent financing stream for Missouri classrooms."

Missouri sports betting next steps
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Voter approval indicates approximately 14 mobile sportsbooks could start accepting bets next year. It is not likely all 14 offered licenses are utilized.
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DraftKings and FanDuel funded almost every dollar of the "yes" campaign and will certainly use 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 casino or sports betting team (and pay an accompanying fee).

Six licenses are readily available to each Missouri casino operator, respectively. Caesars, regardless of opposing the ballot step, will likely use its license to release the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which manages 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 unclear if they will release mobile sportsbooks.
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The remaining 6 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 popular proponents of the tally step.

Together with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri gamblers must anticipate other leading national brand names including BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to seek market access.

Launch probability tiers IF Missouri citizens authorize sports betting:

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

Missouri's tally step enables every Missouri casino to open retail sportsbooks on their respective residential or commercial properties. Most if not all 13 casinos handled by the six gambling establishment operators are anticipated to open in-person wagering alternatives such as wagering kiosks and possibly dedicated, full-service sportsbooks.

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

The language around the tally measure requires the very first certified sportsbooks to start accepting wagers by Dec. 1, 2025. Operators will likely work 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 effective Missouri sports betting wagering campaign comes despite millions in financing opposing the measure from among the state's largest sports betting stakeholders.

Caesars invested millions of dollars to beat the measure. In most other states that connect online sports betting wagering with a state's brick-and-mortar casinos, an operator is given a minimum of one license per handled property.

In that situation in Missouri, Caesars would be afforded a minimum of three potential licenses, one for each casino it handles. Instead, Caesars just has one. In states with the license-per-property design, business can either open additional in-house books or, more frequently, subcontract the license to a rival 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, might potentially have an upper hand on their rivals by making the set of untethered licenses. It stays to be seen which two books will earn these slots, but the language around the ballot step would seem to prefer the 2 national market leaders.

Polling previously in the year showed the "yes" vote with a slight lead. Support efforts were bolstered by tens of millions spent by DraftKings and FanDuel.

A series of tv and radio ads focused on the revenue legal sportsbooks would generate for Missouri public education. Opponents, moneyed mainly by Caesars, argued the supporters' advertisements were deceptive and the 10s of millions of forecasted dollars raised would have a negligible effect in a state that currently invests billions on education each year.