Missouri Lawmakers Pre-File Sports Betting Bills for Upcoming 2023 Session

• MO Lawmakers Have Pre-Filed Two Legal Sports Betting Bills, VLTs an Issue

• Six of Missouri’s State Neighbors Already Have Legal Sports Betting Markets

• U.S. Sports Betting Market Has Generated $169B Handle, $2B in Tax Revenue

MO Lawmakers Have Pre-Filed Two Legal Sports Betting Bills, VLTs an Issue

Missouri’s legislature convenes in less than a month from now on January 4 so some state lawmakers are already getting a jump on reigniting the legal sports betting debate by pre-filing two separate bills that would allow for different versions of that market to be created there.

One of those proposals is Senate Bill 1 (SB-1) which “establishes provisions relating to gaming” in Missouri by creating the ‘Honoring Missouri Veterans and Supporting Missouri Education Act’ which allows the State Lottery Commission to issue licenses for VLT’s and sports gambling.

The idea behind Sen. Danny Hoskins’ SB-1 is to use the tax revenue gained from Video Lottery Terminals (VLT’s) and legal sports betting in Missouri to help fund education and veteran services for underserved residents, though the inclusion of VLT’s was a sticking point in 2022.

This explains in part why Republican Senator Tony Luetkemeyer has also filed separate legal sports betting proposal, Senate Bill 30 (SB-30), which, if passed into law, would also legalize sports betting market but without any mention of the controversial VLT’s.

These are understandable attempts to join in on the multi-billion dollar industry that is the U.S. legal sports betting market.

Six of Missouri’s State Neighbors Already Have Legal Sports Betting Markets

The Show Me State is late to the legal sports betting party that started in May 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned PASPA and gave each state the right to legalize, regulate, and tax their own sports betting market, with over thirty states already having done just that.

Included in that list are some of Missouri’s closest state neighbors – Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee – each now with their own version of legal sports betting that allows residents to place bets online, in person, or both, with tax revenue benefitting the states.

What stinks for Missouri is the number of its sports bettors who are crossing over state lines to place their action in those neighboring states, an activity we previously reported in Missouri Senator “Not Good” with State Residents Sports Betting in Kansas.

What Missouri lawmakers are no doubt realizing is that their state residents are going to gamble on sports whether it’s legal there or not, so until a law is passed, all that money is flowing out of the state and into other pockets, a frustrating loss of potential revenue with a simple fix:

Pass a law to legalize that activity for Missourians and join the multi-billion dollar industry as it continues to evolve and grow.

U.S. Sports Betting Market Has Generated $169B Handle, $2B in Tax Revenue

The legal U.S. sports betting market hasn’t celebrated its 5-year anniversary yet, and already the state markets have generated a combined handle of $168.8 billion, meaning that is how much in wagers have been placed, that total generating $12.68 billion in sportsbook revenue.

That translates into over $2 billion in tax revenue for the states, money that most of them are reinvesting into projects like education, infrastructure, addiction prevention, responsible gambling, and others, all causes that tend to be last in line for funding.

Not much else left to show Missouri in terms of what they are missing out on but starting in January state lawmakers have at least two chances to legalize sports betting – SB-1 and SB-30 – both just a few major compromises away from becoming law.