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

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

Seven of the 8 states surrounding Missouri permit 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 authorize legal sportsbooks and the 31st to green light statewide mobile wagering. It is the only state to approve sports betting this year.

" Missouri has a few 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, stated in a declaration. "On behalf of all six of Missouri's expert sports betting franchises, we wish to thank the Missouri citizens who made their voices heard by approving Amendment 2. This historical vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legalize sports betting and guarantees we no longer lose valuable tax profits to our neighboring states. Most significantly, the passage of Amendment 2 implies a brand-new, dedicated, irreversible funding stream for Missouri classrooms."

Missouri sports betting next actions

Voter approval suggests as much as 14 mobile sportsbooks might start accepting bets next year. It is not likely all 14 offered licenses are utilized.

DraftKings and FanDuel funded nearly every dollar of the "yes" campaign and will unquestionably use 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 group (and pay an accompanying cost).
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Six licenses are available to each Missouri gambling establishment operator, respectively. Caesars, in spite of opposing the tally measure, will likely use its license to release the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which manages ESPN Bet, and Bally's (Bally Bet) will also likely release their respective books.
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The other three operators are Boyd Gaming, Century Casino, and Affinity Interactive. It remains unclear if they will introduce mobile sportsbooks.

The staying 6 licenses are booked for each of the major 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 tally measure.

Together with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri bettors should anticipate other leading national brands consisting of BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to seek market gain access to.
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Launch probability tiers IF Missouri citizens authorize sports betting:

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

Missouri's ballot measure allows every Missouri casino to open retail sportsbooks on their particular properties. Most if not all 13 gambling establishments managed by the 6 gambling establishment operators are anticipated to open in-person sports betting alternatives such as wagering kiosks and possibly devoted, full-service sportsbooks.

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

The language around the ballot 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, continually books' most lucrative time of the sports betting calendar.
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Missouri sports betting wagering background
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The effective Missouri sports betting project comes in spite of millions in funding opposing the procedure from among the state's biggest gambling stakeholders.

Caesars spent countless dollars to defeat the step. In a lot of other states that tie online sports betting with a state's brick-and-mortar casinos, an operator is approved at least one license per managed home.

In that situation in Missouri, Caesars would be afforded a minimum of three potential licenses, one for each casino it handles. Instead, Caesars only has one. In states with the license-per-property model, companies can either open extra internal books or, more typically, farm out the license to a competitor that pays an accompanying fee in exchange.
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FanDuel and DraftKings, which have approximately two-thirds of U.S. nationwide sports betting wagering manage market share, could potentially have a leg up on their competitors by earning the pair of untethered licenses. It stays to be seen which 2 books will make these slots, but the language around the ballot measure would appear to favor the two national market leaders.

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

A series of tv and radio advertisements concentrated on the profits legal sportsbooks would create for Missouri public education. Opponents, moneyed largely by Caesars, argued the fans' ads were misleading and the 10s of countless projected dollars raised would have a negligible effect in a state that already invests billions on education each year.