Legal Missouri Sports Betting Might Have To Wait Until 2025
St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III didn’t mince words.
When asked about the status of legal sports betting in Missouri, which will host the NFL Draft beginning Thursday, he told The Missouri Times last week, “I would describe it as an extremely high level of frustration with not being able to bring this to a vote. We have an issue that is extremely popular with our fans, popular with the politicians, and it’s blocked because others wanna hitch a ride on our wagon, and they have enough clout to bully their way onto the bill.
“They won’t get what they want, but I guess they don’t care that we don’t get anything either. It is really childish behavior.”
With about three weeks left in the current legislative session, Missouri is poised to remain nearly surrounded by legal betting states. Lawmakers, professional sports executives, and casino representatives have all but given up hope of finding a way to broker a deal with Sen. Denny Hoskins, who has twice blocked the passage of legal wagering. In fact, one industry insider said stakeholders may back off negotiations until Hoskins term-limits out of office in November 2024. That would mean legal wagering wouldn’t get to Missouri until 2025 at the earliest.
While DeWitt was clear about his frustration, one casino executive told Sports Handle that backers of legal wagering all believe that a single person — Hoskins — is holding things up. Lawmakers first began discussing legal wagering in 2018, just months after the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Hoskins appeared to be a leader in wanting to bring sports betting to the Show-Me State, filing a bill as early as 2018.
Clear opposition to VLTs
Last year was the first time a bill got through at least one chamber, but it was killed by filibuster in the Senate.
This session, a similar bill moved relatively easily through the House, but ever since a protracted Senate debate during which lawmakers voted down an amendment to again add the legalization of video lottery terminals to sports betting, SB 30, a standalone betting bill, has languished on the calendar. The “no” vote on the VLT amendment marked the second time in two sessions that lawmakers made it clear that they have no appetite for either legalizing the machines or linking them to sports betting in legislation.
Stakeholders have continued to try to work out a deal, but there doesn’t appear to be a solution to the VLT issue, as sources say Hoskins has refused to compromise.
Hoskins told KMOX radio last week that Missouri casinos “don’t like some of the language” added to SB 30 and don’t want to see that passed. He expressed his own level of frustration, saying, “In my mind, I view them all as kind of one bill, one language — they all deal with gambling. Whether we talk about the video lottery terminals, whether we talk about sportsbook, whether we talk about the unregulated machines that we see in many of the truck stops and bars and taverns and convenience stores and fraternal organizations … in my mind, it all relates to gambling and should be one discussion, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Sports betting no longer a top priority
DeWitt is part of a group of Missouri professional sports executives and casino operators that brokered a deal which was brought to politicians in 2022.
The consensus group was the first of its kind anywhere in the U.S., and at the time of the deal, it seemed there was enough lobbying power and political influence to get something passed. But two sessions later, Hoskins continues to insist on linking the legalization of VLTs to the legalization of sports betting — and that’s a non-starter to pro sports teams and casino operators.
These allies have become something of a regular fixture in Jefferson City, but the stalemate continues. Stakeholders suggested that high-ranking General Assembly members might seek to punish Hoskins for his tunnel vision, but nothing has changed so far. And with the session winding down in a state that is not desperate for the tax revenue sports betting could generate, it’s becoming clearer that wagering is dropping down the priority list.
House Speaker Dean Plocher told the St. Louis Post-Dispatchlast week that the “sun is setting” on legal wagering, and House Minority Leader Crystal Quade said any “urgency” around the issue seems to be evaporating and “it doesn’t seem to be such a big priority as it was at the beginning of session.”
After Kentucky lawmakers approved sports betting in late March, seven of Missouri’s eight border states (Oklahoma excepted) have legalized wagering. So as the NFL prepares to descend on the home of the defending Super Bowl champions and look to the future through Thursday night’s draft, Missourians remain stuck in a past that requires them to find their way to Kansas, or another legal betting state to place a bet on whom the Chiefs might select.
