Missouri will have legal mobile and retail sportsbooks next year thanks to one of the narrowest vote margins of any race nationwide in the 2024 election cycle.
Here are the facts and figures behind Missouri’s sports betting ballot measure approval:
Less than 20% of Missouri jurisdictions backed sports betting
Only 19 of the 116 Missouri counties and cities backed the sports betting ballot measure. That was still enough to get it across the finish line.
The “yes” municipalities were overwhelming in the state’s major cities or suburbs. These larger populations offset strong opposition in most of the state’s more rural areas.
Thank Kansas City for legal sports betting
The urban support was most prevalent around – and especially within – Kansas City.
Kansas City proper saw 64.26% of the vote, far and away the highest percentage of support among any county or city in Missouri. The next five highest “yes” voting counties were in the K.C. metro: Platte, Clay, Jackson, Cass, and Buchanan.
On Nov 5, Missouri voted narrowly to legalize sports betting. The city of Kansas City, Missouri (outlined in black) borders the state of Kansas where sports betting is already legal.
— Jaz Hays (@JazHays) November 26, 2024
Kansas City and the surrounding area approved the measure, with weaker support in rural areas. pic.twitter.com/mmE4lWUNJH
The support shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kansas City and its suburbs are home to some of Missouri’s most educated and affluent residents, factors that correlate with sports betting participation. The proximity of legal mobile sports betting in Kansas, combined with the inconvenience of crossing state lines to place bets, likely also boosted the "yes" vote.
Plus, having the chance to bet on the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs from Arrowhead Stadium surely didn’t hurt.
St. Louis nearly fumbles sportsbook approval
Compared to Kansas City, the St. Louis-area municipalities’ support was tepid.
St. Louis (city), St. Louis (County), St. Charles County, and Jefferson County ranked 8th, 10th, 11th, and 18th, respectively, in Missouri sports betting support percentage. The four jurisdictions that make up the bulk of the St. Louis metro backed sports betting, but the comparatively thin margins made the race close.
St. Louis shares a metro area with Illinois, another legal mobile sports betting jurisdiction. The cross-state travel isn’t as simple outside downtown St. Louis as it is throughout much of the Kansas City area. This could have played a factor in the diminished support.
A much tougher sports environment could have also played a role. While Kansas City’s NFL team is on an all-time run and it’s baseball team is coming off an unexpected playoff birth, the St. Louis Cardinals are coming off one of their worst seasons in decades – and the city’s NFL team is playing home games in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the NHL’s Blues have not replicated their surprise 2019 Stanley Cup run in recent years and fired their coach mid-season.
Missouri pro sports organizations were one of the major drivers of the ballot measure. Given the two city’s recent sports successes, it’s not unthinkable this backing carried more weight in Kansas City than in St. Louis.
Missouri’s third-largest metro nearly defeated the amendment
Support in Kansas City and St. Louis was critical to bringing sports betting to Missouri due to opposition from the state’s third-largest – and fastest-growing – metro area.
Greene County, home to Springfield, opposed sports betting 55.3% - 46.7%. This translated to a net of 15,000 “no” votes, the largest total from any county opposing the measure. Of Missouri’s 11 largest municipalities, Greene County was the only one to reject sports betting.
After reviewing the final official results of every Missouri county with more than 10,000 votes this election, I can say - officially - that the sports betting ballot measure has maintained enough support from Election Day tallies to pass; sportsbooks will go live in MO in 2025
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) November 21, 2024
Christian County, home to rapidly growing Springfield suburbs, seemed to jeopardize the measure entirely after a late-reporting batch of several thousand more “no” votes cut the slim 5,000-vote lead from Election Day down to just a few hundred. Christian County added more than 10,000 “no” votes, the second-highest opposition count in the state.
Final official vote counts posted by Missouri’s other 116 municipalities around the time the Christian County ballots dropped gave the “yes” vote a bit more breathing room, but the greater Springfield area nearly doomed sports betting statewide.
Strong rural opposition not enough
Only four of the state’s 72 least-populated counties supported sports betting (the exceptions being Andrew, Saline, Pemiscot, and Atchison). These counties combined to net roughly 68,000 “no” votes – or less than the “yes” net tallies from St. Louis County and Jackson County.
Like support in the urban and suburban areas, opposition was expected in the rural counties. These areas are less educated and less affluent, plus they tend to support more political conservative as well as religious policies that oppose gambling.
Geography likely played a significant role in the lone small counties that backed sports betting.
Andrew and Saline counties are near Kansas City. Pemiscot County, in the southeastern bootheel, borders both Arkansas and Tennessee, states with legal sports betting. Atchison County, in the state’s northwestern corner, borders legal sports betting states Nebraska and Iowa.
Lone interior supporter has easy explanation
Of the 19 supporting jurisdictions, 18 were in one of the state’s two major metros areas or bordered a state with legal sports betting. The lone exception is pretty easy to figure out.
Green counties supported sports betting, red counties opposed; all supporting counties were in the greater KC or St. Louis metros and/or bordered a state with legal sports betting; the exception is Boone (stand-alone green county in the middle) home to the University of Missouri pic.twitter.com/cdlztJaSFh
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) November 21, 2024
Boone County, about a two-hour drive from both St. Louis and Kansas City, backed the sports betting ballot measure, even when all seven neighboring municipalities opposed it. Unlike those counties, Boone is home to a major college in the University of Missouri and an accompanying Division I athletic program, factors that undoubtedly bolstered support.
So … what was the final total?
The state government still needs to certify the 2024 election, but it’s clear Missouri has just enough votes to pass.
County-by-county final election results show “yes” up a few thousand votes out of nearly three million votes cast. That’s less than 0.5%, one of the thinnest margins of the thousands of local, state, and federal races conducted in 2024.
The state allows associated parties to request a recount for races this close, but there’s little indication that any will do so. Even then, the few thousand vote cushion will almost assuredly be enough.
The final margin is close, but it doesn’t matter if the ballot measure passed by one vote or one million; Missouri bettors will have access to legal sportsbooks in 2025.
