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

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

Seven of the eight states bordering Missouri enable mobile or retail sportsbooks. That includes Kansas and Illinois, which divided the Kansas City and St. Louis city locations 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 authorize sports betting wagering this year.

" Missouri has some of the very best sports betting fans on the planet and they appeared big for their preferred teams on Election Day," Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, stated in a declaration. "On behalf of all six of Missouri's professional sports betting franchises, we want to thank the Missouri voters who made their voices heard by approving Amendment 2. This historic vote makes Missouri the 39th state to legalize sports betting and guarantees we no longer lose valuable tax revenue to our surrounding states. Most notably, the passage of Amendment 2 implies a brand-new, devoted, long-term funding stream for Missouri classrooms."

Missouri sports betting wagering next steps

Voter approval means approximately 14 mobile sportsbooks might begin accepting bets next year. It is unlikely all 14 readily available licenses are utilized.

DraftKings and FanDuel financed nearly every dollar of the "yes" campaign and will undoubtedly apply 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 gambling establishment or sports betting team (and pay an accompanying cost).

Six licenses are available to each Missouri gambling establishment operator, respectively. Caesars, regardless of opposing the tally procedure, will likely use its license to introduce the Caesars mobile sportsbook. Penn Entertainment, which handles ESPN Bet, and Bally's (Bally Bet) will likewise likely release their respective books.

The other 3 operators are Boyd Gaming, Century Casino, and Affinity Interactive. It remains unclear if they will introduce mobile sportsbooks.

The staying 6 licenses are scheduled for each of the major expert sports betting teams 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 among the most prominent advocates of the tally measure.

Along with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, Missouri gamblers should anticipate other leading national brand names including BetMGM, bet365, BetRivers and Fanatics to look for market gain access to.

Launch probability tiers IF Missouri voters approve sports betting wagering:

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

Missouri's ballot procedure enables every Missouri gambling establishment to open retail sportsbooks on their respective homes. Most if not all 13 gambling establishments handled by the 6 casino operators are anticipated to open in-person wagering choices such as sports betting kiosks and possibly committed, full-service sportsbooks.

The six sports betting groups can also open in-person sportsbooks within or surrounding to their respective home playing venues. Missouri will join Illinois, Maryland, Arizona, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. among jurisdictions that enable in-stadium retail sportsbooks.

The language around the tally step needs the very first licensed 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, continually books' most lucrative time of the sports betting calendar.

Missouri sports betting wagering background

The successful Missouri sports betting project comes in spite of millions in funding opposing the procedure from one of the state's biggest gambling stakeholders.

Caesars spent countless dollars to defeat the measure. In many other states that tie online sports betting wagering with a state's brick-and-mortar casinos, an operator is granted at least one license per managed property.

Because scenario in Missouri, Caesars would be managed a minimum of three possible licenses, one for each casino it manages. Instead, Caesars just has one. In states with the license-per-property model, business can either open extra internal books or, more typically, subcontract the license to a competitor that pays an accompanying cost in exchange.

FanDuel and DraftKings, which have approximately two-thirds of U.S. nationwide sports betting wagering deal with market share, might potentially have an upper hand on their competitors by earning the set of untethered licenses. It remains to be seen which two books will make these slots, but the language around the ballot measure would appear to favor the 2 national market leaders.

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

A series of television and radio ads focused on the earnings legal sportsbooks would create for Missouri public education. Opponents, funded mostly by Caesars, argued the advocates' advertisements were misleading and the tens of countless projected dollars raised would have a minimal impact in a state that currently invests billions on education each year.