KANSAS CITY, Kan.- After driving through a maze of warehouses, storage facilities, and construction contractors on a recent Monday afternoon, I pulled into the empty parking lot of the UAW Local 31 past a sign reading “No Foreign Cars.” In this case, I wasn’t sure if “foreign” meant “uninvited” or made in another country; either way, I whipped my rented Volkswagen Jetta out of the lot and onto the adjacent street.
Three other cars were already parked, engines on, along the street next to the UAW building parking lot. All had Missouri plates. It was safe to assume their drivers were there, like me, to place bets.
On the advice of Twitter user @PowerTrip Bets, I had pulled up to the industrial complex feet from the border to join other Missouri residents taking advantage of legal betting opportunities across the state line. The account holder said he would join his fellow Missourians to place bets next to the parking lot before that night’s Atlanta Falcons – Philadelphia Eagles game.
I messaged PowerTrip Bets (real name Chuck Kucera) shortly after I arrived. He said he thought he saw me; he could tell by the Volkswagen’s Georgia plates.
Kucera walked out of his car (Missouri plates) and greeted me outside mine. We shook hands next to the empty UAW lot as construction vehicles trudged by and the sounds of slow-moving trains echoed in the distance.
“Welcome to the sportsbook,” Kucera said with a smile.
Border betting opportunities abound
I’ve traveled to more than 30 states in the past two years and placed bets in every one that had a legal mobile sportsbook. Nowhere I’ve been – not Washington D.C., which shares borders with Maryland and Virginia; not New York and New Jersey, where millions cross between the two daily; not even St. Louis, where I had been days earlier – compares to the ease of traversing state lines between Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri.
The UAW lot has become a betting hotspot, Kucera said, because there’s little business traffic and easy access for Missouri bettors. The building, and the broader industrial complex, is right off Route 69, which itself is an exit off of Interstate 635, about a 10-minute drive from downtown Kansas City.
Across the Missouri River, over rows of parked empty trains, you can see the tips of the Argosy Casino Kansas City. Since it’s on the Missouri side of the river, bettors are coming to the empty parking lot instead of the casino to place sports bets.
Kucera and I talked betting. We both liked the passing yardage prop Unders for both quarterbacks in the upcoming Monday night game, a single-game parlay that would have hit if not for an improbable last-minute touchdown drive by Kirk Cousins and the Falcons. We also talked about the ridiculousness of where we stood physically: gambling in a parking lot while looking across the river at a casino.
“It's not luxurious right now,” Kucera tells me between betting tips (always bet Unders between two NFL teams coming off byes). “I'd much rather do it at home and save the gas and save the time.”
During our 30-minute conversation at least a half dozen other cars with Missouri plates pulled up alongside us, parked for a few minutes, and drove off in the direction they came.
The following morning I walked from downtown Kansas City’s Power and Lights entertainment district to the West Bottom neighborhood, through rows of century-old warehouses that are being converted into boutiques, lofts, and breweries. Now standing in Kansas, a few feet from State Line Road, I placed bets for the upcoming Thursday’s NFL games (I’d won some money back betting DeVonta Smith props and the team Under on Monday Night Football).
In neighborhoods like these, Kansas and Missouri’s border is no longer the River but a straight, manmade line running north and south. Dave D’Marko, a reporter for Kansas City’s FOX news station affiliate, told me their studio is a “bowling ball roll” away from the Kansas-Missouri line.
On any road driving west from Missouri, a traveler will see multiple sportsbook billboards once they cross into Kansas.
First sports betting amendment support ads are coming out on Kansas City sports talk radio; ad stresses that Missouri is losing sports betting tax dollars to Illinois and Kansas
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) September 17, 2024
Kansas City holds the keys to Missouri betting
All Missouri voters will see a yes-no question on this fall’s ballot to approve legal mobile and retail sportsbooks. The chance to legalize sports betting will largely come down to support from residents (and bettors) in St. Louis and, potentially even more so, Kansas City.
Statewide polling shows the greatest support in these two areas (my unofficial polling also shows high levels of support in college towns like Columbia). These areas need to drive up the votes to combat opposition in rural areas.
The urban metros will also need to overcome opposition from some of the Kansas City casinos that would, presumably, open sportsbooks.
Caesars Entertainment has already contributed several million dollars opposing the campaign. The multinational gaming giant operates Harrah’s outside Kansas City as well as the Horseshoe near downtown St. Louis and the Isle of Capri in Boonville. Under an unusual proposed regulatory structure, Caesars would only have access to one mobile sports betting license in Missouri; in most other legal sports betting states, each casino receives one or more licensing opportunities.
Betting on the other side of Missouri; I placed this bet in Kansas maybe 20-30 yards from the Missouri line pic.twitter.com/N03P7NjcAJ
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) September 17, 2024
Penn Entertainment, Affinity Gaming, Boyd Gaming, and Century Casinos all operate two Missouri casinos and would likewise only be eligible for one license apiece. Bally’s, which operates a casino along the Missouri River northeast of downtown Kansas City, is the sixth eligible operator and the only one with just one managed property.
DraftKings and FanDuel, the nation’s two largest sportsbooks by market share, would seem to have the best chance at two “untethered” sports betting licenses permitted in Missouri should voters approve the ballot measure. They would not have to undertake the common practice in other states of partnering with brick-and-mortar proprietors (and paying them an accompanying fee), further upsetting retail operators such as Caesars.
DraftKings and FanDuel have made nearly $15 million in combined contributions to the campaign. They’ve been joined by the state’s six professional sports teams, all of which would be able to open retail sportsbooks within or adjacent to their properties.
In Kansas City, this would mean the opportunity for a retail book at Harrah’s in North Kansas City, plus a book at Bally’s Casino and its next-door neighbor CPKC Stadium, home to the National Women Soccer League’s Kansas City Current. The Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals are amid ongoing relocation discussions, but they too would be allowed books at their new facilities (assuming they remain in Missouri) or at their shared property at the Turman Sports Complex in the city’s suburbs.
There would also presumably be an ESPN BET-branded retail book at the Penn-operated Argosy just across the River from the UAW parking lot.
The conflict between the mobile sportsbooks and the pro teams against the casinos could determine the fate of legal sports betting in Missouri. For bettors such as Kucera, he just hopes he can have the chance to bet from home. Though it’s a simple trip, he still travels five times a week to Kansas to place bets. He said it would be nice to place a live wager for once.
From first-hand experience, I know it’d be better than betting from outside a parking lot.
