Voters will soon know if a proposal to legalize sports betting in the Show-Me State will be on the election ballot in November alongside all the other usual choices.
Tuesday is the deadline for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office to certify whether a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution garnered enough signatures.
If it has, Missouri voters will be asked in November if regulated sports betting should be allowed, including mobile wagering, by people over the age of 21, and with money raised by a 10% tax rate used for education.
Certified flutter ploy
The certification would mean success for Missouri’s professional sports teams and a pair of online sports betting operators, which are leading and financing the effort. It would also be a successful end-around the state legislature, where efforts to legalize sports betting have been consistently stymied for years.
And, if a majority of voters were to approve the ballot question, it would set the stage for the launch of legal in-person and online Missouri sports betting before the end of 2025.
“Estimates suggest that Missourians currently place hundreds of millions in bets each year either by using illegal, offshore gaming websites, or by driving to neighboring states to place wagers,” said Winning for Missouri Education, the group behind the proposed ballot question, in a May press release. “By legalizing sports gaming in Missouri, the initiative petition would halt much of this activity and instead provide tens of millions of dollars annually for Missouri classrooms, where teachers are some of the lowest paid in the entire country.”
First things first, though: a ballot question must be certified for the ballot.
July 30 was the deadline for local election authorities in Missouri to verify signatures and submit that information to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office. Ashcroft and Co. have until Tuesday to count all the signatures and then issue a certificate stating whether or not there were enough to comply with state law and if the proposed amendment will go on the ballot in November.
Roughly 180,000 signatures are needed for the sports betting-related measure to make the ballot, as petitions proposing constitutional changes must be signed by 8% of legal voters in six of the state's eight congressional districts. Winning for Missouri Education said in May that they submitted more than 340,000, which could be more than enough.
We’ll know soon. But if the question is indeed going to be on the ballot, there are considerable resources that may be deployed to ensure a majority of voters give their approval.
The Missouri sports betting committee reported $0 in new contributions in the last three months; the group looking to place a measure that would allow voters to approve mobile sportsbooks has raised $6.5m overall, most of that coming from FanDuel and DraftKings
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) July 24, 2024
The committee behind the proposed ballot measure, Winning for Missouri Education, includes the state’s six professional sports franchises that could rally support for the measure.
The group has also received more than $6 million from companies connected to DraftKings and FanDuel, the two largest online sports betting operators in the U.S. With 38 states having already legalized some form of sports betting, the number of new markets left to tap is small and getting smaller, which may explain the interest from the operators.
There were multiple sports betting-related initiative petitions approved for circulation in Missouri this election cycle. All, though, have the aim of legalizing and regulating retail and online sports betting in the state at and through its riverboat casinos, professional sports venues, and online sports betting apps and sites.
It remains to be seen if voters will back the ballot measure. Recent polling suggested support for legalizing sports betting in Missouri was a bit cooler than previous public opinion surveys indicated.
"The people of the state of Missouri hereby find and declare that the interests of the public are best served by a well-regulated sports wagering industry that will provide substantial tax revenue to support educational institutions in Missouri," the proposed amendment states.
