It’s official. On Tuesday, Missouri elections officials announced proponents calling for a vote to amend the state’s constitution to allow sports betting received enough valid signatures to put the issue on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
If voters ratify the proposed amendment, the Show-Me State would become the 39th state to legalize sports betting. That includes Kansas, which is one of seven states bordering Missouri that allows sports betting in some form. The Sunflower State has six licensed Kansas sports betting operators – including Caesars Kansas Sportsbook, and data indicates thousands of western Missouri residents have at least tried to access those apps.
During Super Bowl weekend in February, when the Kansas City Chiefs successfully defended their NFL championship, GeoComply reported it tracked more than 206,000 attempts to access Kansas sports betting apps.
While those individuals could check odds, make deposits or request withdrawals, GeoComply, which provides geolocation services to ensure all bets are placed within the licensed state, blocked those individuals from placing bets in Missouri. That forced those who wanted to bet on the Chiefs moneyline or on prop bets for players like Travis Kelce to make the trek into Kansas to do so.
When Could Missouri Sports Betting Begin?
The initiative calls for Missouri sports betting to start no later than Dec. 1, 2025, should the amendment pass. Missouri officials may look to launch earlier in the year, similar to Kansas, which allowed BetMGM Kansas and other operators to accept wagers beginning on Sept. 1, 2022, to coincide with the start of the NFL and college football seasons.
Given the multitude of states that have legalized sports betting, Kansas is far from the first one to potentially see a neighboring state join the club. States like Indiana and New Jersey initially benefitted from their regional neighbors not approving online sports betting until later. For more than three years, New Jersey drew scores of bettors from New York City until New York online apps went live in January 2022. Indiana capitalized for years as patrons from Ohio and Kentucky crossed over to make their wagers.
BetKansas.com analyzed the data from Indiana and New Jersey to see what impact launches in larger neighboring states had on their monthly sports betting handles. Not surprisingly, those states did experience initial dips in betting traffic, but the data also indicates the slumps were also short-lived.
Sports Betting Continues To Grow In Garden State
While New York went live in January 2022, New Jersey didn’t begin to experience year-to-year monthly handle declines until May of that year. For each of the next 12 months – from May 2022 to April 2023 – New Jersey saw handles fall by as much as 19.8%.
However, since May 2023, New Jersey has seen monthly handles increase on a year-to-year basis in 13 of the past 14 months. Those increases were by 10% or more in 11 of those months, and they were better than 25% jumps in eight months. The biggest came in January when New Jersey sportsbooks took $1.72 billion in wagers. That was a 79.3% increase from the $1.08 billion bet in January 2023 and 27.5% better than the $1.35 billion handle from January 2022.
Also of interest: All About Kansas Sports Betting Handle And Revenue.
Indiana Sets Sports Betting Records After Neighbors Launch
Indiana saw its market take a hit twice in 2023. Ohio launched online sports betting to ring in the year. For the first seven months of 2023, the Hoosier State saw its monthly handles decline on a year-to-year basis by anywhere from 1.4% in July to 14.6% in January.
While Kentucky is not a bigger state than Indiana, its largest city, Louisville, sits across the Ohio River, and thousands of its residents would frequently crossover to make wagers on such apps as DraftKings and FanDuel. Last October, the first full month for online sports betting in the Bluegrass State, Indiana sportsbooks reported a handle of $429.7 million, a drop by nearly 4% from the previous year.
Since then, however, it’s been nothing but a growth spurt for Indiana sportsbooks. Since last November, the Indiana Gaming Commission has reported year-to-year handle increases of at least 12.5%. That includes $513.7 million wagered in November, a record-setting monthly handle and one of three times Hoosiers have bet more than $500 million in a month in the last nine months. In addition, almost all of the initial declines after Ohio’s launch have dissipated. Last month, Indiana reported a sports betting handle of $261.1 million, an increase of 28.1% from the $203.8 million wagered in July 2023 and 26.4% better than the $206.6 million bet in July 2022.
So, the data shows that if Missouri legalizes sports betting, Kansas sportsbooks will likely take a hit during the first year. However, the market should eventually rebound and continue to grow and add to the $16.7 million the state has received in taxes in the nearly two years since Kansas sports betting began.
USA Today photo by Denny Medley.
