Missouri's professional sports teams announced Friday that they have started a petition to legalize sports betting on the November ballot.
The initiative is an attempt to circumvent the Missouri Senate, where bills to allow sports betting have repeatedly stalled. Missouri is one of just 12 states where sports betting remains illegal, more than five years after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to introduce it.
Vermont launched mobile sports betting on Thursday, becoming the latest state to join the trend.
Legal online sports betting will begin in Vermont next month, the government announced.Scott announced
Sports betting is rapidly expanding, but it is unlikely that more state legislatures will allow sports betting in 2024 due to political resistance and, in some cases, competing economic interests of existing betting operators. It seems subtle.
Missouri sports teams announced they will begin distributing the petition this week and will collect signatures at a St. Louis Cardinals offseason event and a St. Louis Blues home game this weekend.
Other teams in the federation include the Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Currents and St. Louis City football teams. Supporters have until May to submit the roughly 180,000 signatures of registered voters needed to be eligible to vote.
“We support the legalization of sports betting in Missouri in a reasonable, safe and responsible manner that is beneficial to our teams, fans, Missouri teachers, and other Missourians,” said President Bill DeWitt III. We are united in this goal.” A St. Louis Cardinals player said in a statement.
Fans enter Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, on October 10, 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
A proposed constitutional amendment would allow each of Missouri's 13 casinos and six professional sports teams to offer on-site and mobile sports betting. Teams will control on-site gambling and advertising within 400 yards of their stadiums and arenas. The initiative would also allow two mobile sports betting operators to obtain licenses directly from the Missouri Gaming Commission.
Sportsbook companies DraftKings and FanDuel each donated $250,000 earlier this week to a newly formed election commission to support the ballot initiative.
Under the initiative, at least $5 million a year in license fees and taxes would go towards problem gambling programs, with the remaining tax revenue going to elementary, secondary and higher education. If approved by voters, state regulators would have to open sports betting no later than Dec. 1, 2025.
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The Missouri Gaming Association, which represents the casinos, declined to comment on the sports teams' efforts.
A sports betting bill has passed the Missouri House of Representatives, but no agreement has been reached in the Senate. Republican state Sen. Denny Hoskins argued that sports betting should be combined with regulation of video games in the form of legally questionable slot machines located at convenience stores and truck stops. The casinos are against this, and the two sides remain at loggerheads.
“It should be all or nothing,” Hoskins told The Associated Press before this year's legislative session began.
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Online sports betting companies, casinos, professional sports teams and video gaming terminal companies have joined forces to hire about 80 lobbyists in Missouri.
