Sports betting legalization is expected to be one of the highest priority topics for Missouri legislators during their annual session according to legislative leaders of both parties.
High Public Interest
Missouri residents need to cross into neighboring Kansas or Illinois to place a wager on a sporting event but this may not continue for long as legislators gathered for their annual session with the subject high on their minds, The Missouri Independent revealed.
Public interest in legalizing sports betting is what should place sports betting high up the agenda list is what legislative leaders from both parties believe, with both House Minority and Majority leaders and Senate President and Senate Minority Leader sharing the same opinion.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Democrat, said that sports betting is “a topic of conversation everywhere,” while Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Republican, added that he has been hearing about sports betting “all the time.”
House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Republican, explained that people’s interest is being amplified by the advertising on TV and billboards across the Kansas City area, while Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo admitted to having crossed the Kansas border to place a wager in the past, much like most of the sports enthusiasts in the Kansas City area.
Patterson also argued that when sports betting “is something that [obviously] a lot of people want to have, it seems a little silly for people in Kansas City to have to go over to the other side and place their bets there,” convinced that the high public interest will push the topic up on the agenda.
The Revenue Component
And his opinion is supported by geolocation data from GeoComply showing that the geolocation services provider has blocked 5.7 million login attempts from Missouri residents to gambling websites between September 1 and December 16.
Further, some 1,270 users between November 16 and December 16 had their devices located on both sides of the Kansas border, meaning Missouri is losing on potential sports betting revenue while state money is flowing out to Kansas, revenue that “can be used for education,” according to Patterson.
But sports betting legalization will not be an easy task as it opposes conflicting interests: casino operators and professional teams will look to acquire a big enough slice of the revenue pie, video vendors will look to lawmakers for concessions such as the legalization of a new lottery game for their customers across bars, truck stops and fraternal halls, and currently facing prosecution operators of games at gas stations and corner stores will oppose any bill that will define their legal status.