Missouri Sports Betting Bill Likely to Be Approved by House, Move to Senate

• The Missouri House of Representatives gave preliminary approval today to a sports betting bill
• The bill needs to be approved at a final House vote before moved to the Senate
• The bill calls for an 8% sports betting tax, one of the lowest in the country

Missouri sports betting could soon become a reality.

The Missouri House of Representatives today gave preliminary approval to HB 2502, which will legalize retail and online sports betting for state casinos and Missouri professional sports franchises.

Bill HB 2502 (sponsored by Rep. Dan Houx) will allow for 39 separate sportsbooks skins distributed amongst the state’s 13 casinos and six professional sports organizations. The bill will officially set the sports betting tax rate at 8%, which will be one of the lowest in the country.

When introduced, the bill set the sports betting tax rate at 10%, a sticking point for several state representatives. An approved amendment lowered the rate to just 8%. House fiscal analysts believe this could result in around $10 million in annual tax revenue for the state.

The bill still needs to be given a final approval on the House floor (which is expected) before it’s officially moved over to the Senate.

If approved by the Senate, it will require Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s (R) signature before it becomes law.

39 Potential Online Sports Betting Operators

The bill will allow each casino to offer a maximum of three skins, but will cap the number of skins per casino company at six if they own two or more facilities. The remaining skins will be allocated to Missouri professional sports franchises.

The breakdown for skins will be as such:

• Affinity Gaming: Six skins
• Boyd Gaming: Six skins
• Caesars Entertainment: Six skins
• Century Casinos: Six skins
• Penn National Gaming: Six skins
• Bally’s Corp.: Three skins
• Missouri professional sports franchises (6): One skin each

An online sports betting license will require an initial application fee of $150,000, and then a renewal fee of $125,000 one year after. A retail sports betting license will require an initial application fee of $100,000.

Missourians Are Interested in Sports Betting

Representatives from the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals, NHL’s St. Louis Blues,  NWSL’s Kansas City Crest, and MLS’s St. Louis City Soccer Club have all spoke up in favor of legalized Missouri sports betting throughout the bill’s hearings.

Proponents of the bills argued that data shows Missourians are eager to engage in sports betting. Based on data from GeoComply, over Super Bowl LVI weekend the company blocked nearly 70,000 attempts made by people within Missouri trying to access betting options in neighboring states, according to testimony submitted from iDevelopment and Economic Association (iDEA Growth).

GeoComply data also showed that more than 3.9 million geolocation transactions occurred just 10 miles from Missouri’s borders in Illinois, Iowa, or Tennessee.