kansas city missouri casino sports betting

Several versions of a sports betting petition were filed Friday with Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's office, which must approve an initiative summary before supporters can start gathering the roughly 180,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot by a May deadline. “We’re not optimistic that kind of dynamic within the Missouri Senate will change,” Whittle said.Īs professional sports teams waited for a resolution on sports betting, lawmakers passed various other high-profile issues, including expanded gun rights and restrictions on transgender health care treatments. Similar bills have repeatedly stalled in the Republican-led Senate because of a dispute about whether to pair sports betting with the regulation of slot-machine-style games that have been popping up in convenience stores. Voters defeated both measures.Įarlier this year, the Missouri House voted 118-35 in favor of sports betting legislation, but it never received a Senate vote. The last state to put sports betting on the ballot was California, where supporters and opponents of two competing proposals raised a record of around $460 million last year. Maine and Vermont have legalized it but are still working to set up their betting systems. Kentucky became the 35th state with active sports betting when the NFL season began last week. Supreme Court cleared the way for it five years ago. Sports betting has expanded rapidly - it's now legal in all but one of Missouri's neighboring states - since the U.S.

Legalized sports betting would 'provide our fans a good, new exciting way to enjoy sports and root for our teams,” Whittle said Tuesday. Gathering petitions signatures and running an advertising campaign for a ballot measure can cost millions of dollars - a price the teams are committed to collectively help cover, said Mike Whittle, the Cardinals’ senior vice president and general counsel, on behalf of the coalition.

Louis Cardinals baseball team, and also includes the Kansas City Chiefs football team, the Kansas City Royals baseball team, the Kansas City Current and St. (AP) - A coalition of Missouri's professional sports teams is backing a new effort to legalize sports betting that could put the issue to voters on the 2024 ballot.Īfter missing out on millions of dollars in betting revenues over the past several years, the sports teams decided they are done waiting for the Missouri Legislature to act and instead have taken the first step toward an initiative petition drive that would circumvent lawmakers.

Kansas city missouri casino sports betting