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By a razor-thin margin, Missouri voters have approved a ballot initiative to legalize land-based and mobile sports betting, making it the first, and likely the only, state to legalize the activity in 2024.
Amendment 2, a ballot initiative to amend the state’s constitution that was backed by a coalition of major online sports-betting operators and Missouri professional sports teams, was adopted by a majority of state voters during Tuesday's general election, according to unofficial state election results.
Some 50.2 percent of the state's roughly 2.8m voters cast their ballot to adopt the proposal, barely meeting the required majority to enact the amendment by about 14,000 votes.
Supporters of the initiative contributed more than $40m to the Winning for Missouri Education PAC, mostly from FanDuel and DraftKings, with some late contributions from a collection of Missouri pro teams.
Under the initiative, the six in-state teams will each receive a license to operate a land-based sportsbook in or around their stadium, as well as one mobile betting platform to partner with an online gaming operator.
Casinos will also receive a similar license, although the number of licenses available for casinos has remained somewhat murky throughout the campaign.
Many in the industry had interpreted language in the initiative as limiting each casino owner to one mobile platform, rather than each casino itself, a disadvantage for operators who operate multiple properties.
However, a spokesperson for the Missouri Gaming Commission told iGaming Business this week that the regulator interprets the provision to mean that each casino will be entitled to its own mobile betting platform, which would add another seven market access opportunities for online operators in the state.
The initiative also empowers the commission to issue two mobile betting licenses that are untethered to any land-based entity.
Caesars Entertainment backed an opposition campaign against the proposal and contributed more than $14m to the campaign, which argued that the initiative would not properly direct funds to education and that allowing operators to deduct promotional play from taxable revenues would limit the revenue a sports-betting program could generate.
However, the effort tapered off in the weeks before the election, with the No on Amendment 2 campaign pulling television advertising in late October.
Missouri becomes the first state to adopt new sports-betting legislation in 2024, preventing the gaming industry from snapping a seven-year streak dating back to 2017 of having at least one new state enact legislation permitting betting.
Under the industry-friendly initiative, operators will pay a 10 percent tax on adjusted gross revenue, which includes deductions for promotional play of up to 25 percent of the operator's total cash received for a month and federal excise tax. License fees would also be favorable, with a $250,000 cost for a five-year retail license and a $500,000 cost for a five-year mobile license.
The legislation requires a sports-betting launch date of no later than December 1, 2025.
Mixed Results For Casino Initiatives
Missouri voters did reject an unrelated initiative to authorize the Missouri Gaming Commission to issue a new casino license for Bally’s to open a riverboat casino on the Osage River near the Lake of the Ozarks tourist resort.
About 52 percent of voters opposed the casino initiative despite supporters investing more than $10m campaigning for the approval of a 14th casino in the state.
Elsewhere, voters repealed authorization for a casino license in Pope County by a constitutional amendment that also requires state-wide voter approval for any new casino proposal, plus an additional vote in the county where the property would be located.
With 66 of the state’s 74 counties reporting unofficial results, almost 56 percent of voters supported the amendment, preventing the Cherokee Nation from opening a casino in Pope County.
The location was one of four casino licenses approved by voters in a 2018 initiative, but the project became controversial and faced several legal challenges before a ballot initiative to repeal the license was backed by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, who feared cannibalization of its casinos near the Arkansas border.
However, all was not lost for the casino industry on election night, as voters in Petersburg, Virginia, overwhelmingly supported a ballot question to permit casino gaming at a new location just off Interstate 95 in the town, with more than 81 percent of the more than 12,000 votes cast in the city being in favor of the plan.
The town becomes the fifth in Virginia to approve a referendum permitting a casino, joining Danville, Bristol, and Portsmouth, where casinos have already opened, and Norfolk, where the Pamunkey Indian Tribe is expected to open a casino in 2027.
The Petersburg location is set to be constructed and operated by the Cordish Companies under their Live! Casino brand.
