Missouri voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment legalizing sports gambling, according to unofficial results from the Missouri Secretary of State's office, leaving the state with the task of implementing sports betting while facing lingering questions about public support and a potential recount.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sports betting ballot initiative this close,” said Matt Para, a senior adviser for Spectrum Gaming Capital with 20 years of experience in the online gambling and sports betting industry.
On Tuesday, Missouri counties were required to submit official results from the Nov. 5 election to the Missouri Secretary of State's office, which has until Dec. 10 to certify the results.
As additional votes are tallied, some from overseas voters or valid provisional ballots, the margin of votes in favor of the amendment grows thinner and is well within the 0.5% range required to request a recount.
The Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment campaign, which opposed the sports betting amendment, does not plan to initiate a recount, the Missouri Independent reported Monday, but language in state law indicates any voter who opposed the amendment would have legal grounds to request a recount.
Provided the measure survives, Missouri would become the 39th state to legalize sports gambling. The wave of legalization began after a 2018 Supreme Court decision struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, a 1992 law barring sports gambling in most states.
The close margin of victory for sports gambling in Missouri has led Para to believe that the amount of advertisements from sports betting companies may have backfired with Missourians.
DraftKings, a popular online casino and sports betting platform, reported in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Nov. 8 that its sales and marketing costs in the three months ended Sept. 30 were $339.9 million, an increase from the previous year's $313.3 million, which was attributed to higher advertising costs.
“The industry as a whole is really trying to force that down the consumers’ throats,” Para said. “I don't think the public is keen to that anymore.”
As Missouri prepares to implement sports betting, the industry faces the challenge of winning over a populace that approved legalization by a very slim margin.
“I think we're going to see more and more opposition in more states,” Para said. “I think now nobody is embracing it as entertainment; they're seeing it as gambling.”
Along with an abundance of advertisements, the state's political makeup could have contributed to the tight race, said Patrick Evans, a writer for Legal Sports Report, a sports gambling industry publication.
“In no state is sports betting really a one-party thing; it has to be bipartisan,” Evans said. “It’s really a back and forth, trying to work across the aisle and make it happen, and I think you saw that at the polls.”
The amendment states that the Missouri Gaming Commission must make sports betting available by Dec. 1, 2025, but Evans said he has seen many states outpace proposed timelines to implement sports gambling.
“Most of these states are able to do it within, you know, generally, I'd say like three to six months is kind of the timeline for a lot of them once it's passed,” Evans said.
After Kansas legalized sports gambling in May 2022, the state successfully launched operations by September of that year.
Para said this rush to get sports betting operational is due to the revenue that fall and winter sports bring in, such as the MLB playoffs and the NFL and NBA regular seasons.
“You’ve got to be live by September for football season so that you can capitalize and really set the groundwork for your first full year of operations,” Para said.
The months with the highest average amount of money wagered on sports betting since 2018 are January, with an average of $7.04 billion, and March, with an average of $6.79 billion, followed by November, December and September, according to Legal Sports Report.
The process of getting sports betting operational has also become easier, as sports betting platforms are accustomed to the regulatory standards required by states, with only slight adjustments needed, Para said.
“They’ve scaled their operations across so many jurisdictions, and each jurisdiction having a slight little tweak that makes it different,” Para said. “This is just another market; there’s a recipe for it.”
Para said the regulatory standards that are common among states are related to geolocation — ensuring players are only playing within state lines — customer verification, anti-money laundering measures and responsible gambling features.
With the groundwork having already been laid, the Missouri Gaming Commission can turn its attention to the licensing process, rather than getting bogged down by the fine details, Evans said.
“Missouri is kind of unique in that most of the regulations are already laid out in what was in the ballot question,” Evans said. “So, the Missouri Gaming Commission won’t have to do a whole lot.”
The straightforwardness of the ballot initiative, the large number of states that have already laid the groundwork for legal parameters, and the incentive to have markets open for NFL season all point to Missouri activating sports betting before the deadline.
“The NFL is the biggest handle for sportsbooks; that's what they need to capture,” Evans said. “So, I'm almost positive Missouri will be up before next September.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Business Alert, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
