Missouri to Vote on Legalizing Sports Betting in November
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SportsTranscript
00:00All right, so we are approaching the final quarter of the year in the fall, Jim.
00:09And we've gone through this entire year of sports betting, and it has been crickets for
00:14legalizing sports betting at a lot of the states that still do not have it legal, especially
00:19in Texas.
00:20We just haven't heard all that much.
00:21Missouri started to make some noise, and we were a little skeptical as to whether or not
00:25this would actually get done.
00:26But here we go.
00:28Sports betting in November on the ballot in Missouri.
00:32Jim, is there a chance that this goes through?
00:35If so, this will be our big sports betting state of the year.
00:38Yeah, and to your point, Craig, this really isn't a time in the year where we're talking
00:45about states legalizing sports betting.
00:47But we have two potentially here with Missouri and Nebraska, which we'll get to in a couple
00:53of minutes.
00:54So yesterday, the Secretary of State's office in Missouri announced that the path to legalizing
01:05Missouri sports betting will be on the ballot upcoming in November.
01:10The voters there will get the chance to legalize sports betting after a couple of failed attempts
01:16in the legislature the last couple of years.
01:19The Secretary of State's office said that there was a sufficient number of signatures
01:24on a petition.
01:26The group backing this effort gave in about 340,000 signatures, and they needed 170,000
01:37to be verified.
01:39So obviously, they're taking a large sample and running some percentages, and that all
01:46came to fruition.
01:48So Missouri bettors will get the opportunity to legalize sports betting on the ballot in
01:57November.
01:58Now, this process has been going on since the fall.
02:02DraftKings, FanDuel, both involved in this process, they've spent about $6.5 million
02:10on this effort to get that legalizing sports betting question on the ballot in Missouri.
02:18So how this would work would be a 10% tax rate on sports betting revenue, and the casinos
02:27and the professional sports teams in the state would have the ability to have in-person and
02:33online wagering.
02:34There's 13 casinos, six sports teams, and the state gaming commission would also be
02:39allowed to issue two untethered sports betting licenses there.
02:45This state, Missouri, has always been a hot topic over the last couple of years.
02:50The push to legalize sports betting there passed the House in both 2022 and 2023, but
02:57ultimately met its demise in the Senate with Senator Denny Hoskins, who was trying to tie
03:03it to a VLT, a video lottery terminal bill that just didn't gain much support, and it
03:13didn't really even come up all that much this last cycle in 2024.
03:17So a couple of failed attempts through the legislature, but now we see sports betting
03:24will land on the ballot in Missouri coming up in November.