With no legal sports betting market of their own, Missouri bettors have traveled over the border to Kansas to place bets. Kansas benefits from being Missouri’s nearest betting market, but with sports wagers now legalized in the Show Me State, Kansas officials are preparing for inevitable market changes.
After months of uncertainty, Missouri voters approved the sports betting ballot in early November. It passed with an approval rate of 50.05% and a margin of only 2,961 votes. Now, lawmakers have until December 2025 to launch Missouri’s regulated market.
Missouri predicted to outperform Kansas
Kansas’ sports betting market has generated more than $300 million in revenue since launching in 2022. The Sunflower State experienced its largest ever monthly betting handle of $275.9 million in October, a 10.5% year-over-year increase.
A recent study predicts Missouri’s legal betting handle could exceed $3.4 billion in its first year. This projection exceeds the $2.1 billion handle Kansas sports betting generated in 2023.
However, officials in the Sunflower State aren’t worried about the impact this new market might have on Kansas’ own revenues.
“It has been incredibly popular, more so than we even predicted here in the state,” said Cory Thone, spokesman for the Kansas Lottery, as WIBW-TV reported. “I think there would certainly be some type of impact but I’m not sure how much it’s going to be. I don’t want to speculate.”
Thone believes that while many Missourians will no doubt take advantage of the new Missouri sports betting market, it’s possible they won’t abandon Kansas completely.
“For a lot of these people that live in Missouri that maybe were coming to Kansas, I would expect them to keep their Kansas account so maybe when they are in the state they will make a bet when they are here but they also have options somewhere else as well,” Thone explained.
Operators hoping to launch in Missouri
Leading sportsbook operators DraftKings and FanDuel, who contributed more than $20 million to the Winning for Missouri Education coalition, hope to receive a Missouri betting license. FanDuel already has relationships with the MLB's St. Louis Cardinals and Missouri-based Boyd Gaming, while DraftKings, a partner of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, has first dibs on any Penn Entertainment license in Missouri, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
BetRivers’ parent company Rush Street Interactive also expressed interest in joining the Missouri market.
