KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Kansas City voters dragged Amendment 2 across the finish line Tuesday, bringing legal sports gambling to the state.
Amendment 2 only passed in 20 of Missouri’s 114 counties and only polled higher than 55% in six counties, including five that share a border with Kansas.
Collectively, Kansas City-area voters in border counties — Buchanan, Cass, Clay, Platte and Jackson counties, including Kansas City, Missouri — passed Amendment 2 with nearly 58.4% of the vote. Statewide the amendment passed with less than 50.1% of the vote.
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“In Kansas City, you have that dynamic where you know that sports betting is taking place just across State Line Road there,” said Winning for Missouri Education spokesperson Jack Cardetti. “In fact, we know 10s of 1,000s of Missourians are actively heading over there every month to go place bets on sports then coming back to the state of Missouri.
"That didn't make any sense from a public policy standpoint, and I think the sort of just the visual and the realization of that helped Kansas City voters, in particular, pull a yes on Amendment 2 vote.”
As results continued to trickle in Wednesday morning, Amendment 2’s margin of victory narrowed to fewer than 4,400 votes, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s unofficial numbers.
It passed by nearly 78,900 votes — 274,160 to 195,306 — in the Kansas City area’s five border counties.
“It certainly was a close election,” Cardetti said. “A ballot initiative has never had so much money spent against it in the history of Missouri actually, so the fact that we were able to overcome that and really see support from all different areas of the state was overwhelming. But I must say, Kansas City and Kansas City voters were really the ones that put us over the top last night.”
Winning for Missouri Education is the political action committee funded by FanDuel and DraftKings to support Amendment 2.
Under Missouri law, when the margin of victory in a statewide race is less than 0.5%, a party with standing can request a recount, but Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment, a PAC funded by Caesars Entertainment to oppose Amendment 2, said Wednesday that it does not plan to request a recount.
“Thank you to the thousands of Missourians who voted ‘no’ on Amendment 2,” the campaign said in an email to KSHB 41 News. “We are grateful for the many, many organizations and voters who supported our coalition, and we extend our congratulations to Winning for Missouri Education. We look forward to finding ways to work together to benefit all Missourians.”
It’s been 10 years since Missouri had a recount for a constitutional amendment and the final certification of a right to farm amendment didn’t change the outcome.
Amendment 2 received support in St. Louis where three counties border Illinois, which legalized sports gambling five years ago.
Several mid-Missouri counties and scattered counties that share a border near out-of-state casinos, like Lewis and Pemiscot counties in eastern Missouri, also passed Amendment 2.
“This certainly was popular over in St Louis,” Cardetti said. “But all throughout the campaign, our internal polling, we did show Kansas City, the Kansas City media market, as the largest supporters of this. I don't think you can overstate just how many sports fans you have over in Kansas City and, frankly, what a great time it is to be a sports fan in Kansas City, whether it's hosting playoff baseball games at ‘The K’ or going to a match in the world's first purpose-built women's professional stadium there on the riverfront or obviously rooting on the back-to-back Super Bowl championships.”
Cardetti also credited the support of Missouri’s professional sports teams — the Chiefs, Current and Royals in Kansas City along with the Blues, Cardinals and St. Louis City SC — for Amendment 2’s passage.
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“Quite frankly, this would not have happened without the six professional sports teams here in the state of Missouri and some of the best sports fans in the world, so we were thrilled with the outcome last night,” Cardetti said. “Obviously, we'll watch the certification process closely, but we don't expect any change in the outcome.”
Amendment 2 officially becomes a new state law on Dec. 5, which is 30 days after the election, though that could be dependent on the secretary of state office’s final certification, which must be completed before Dec. 10.
Seven of Missouri's eight neighboring states — including Kansas, which legalized sports betting two years ago, and Illinois, which passed legislation in 2019 to allow sports wagering — already allow sporting gambling.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Once the election is certified, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said any legal challenges would have to be sorted out.
But that seems unlikely since the group that opposed Amendment 2 and would have standing to challenge the election results does not plan to request a recount.
“In general, it has to be someone that has a dog in a fight,” Ashcroft said of who has standing to request a recount. “Generally speaking, I think it’s been held that you were part of the committee that campaigned for it, you were part of the committee that submitted it or you were part of the MEC (Missouri Ethics Commission) committee that raised money and ran campaign ads against it. That's generally what the courts have looked to, but that's a judicial determination.”
Ashcroft doesn’t expect the certification process to impact the outcome of Amendment 2.
“My guess is that after certification, the numbers will either be exactly the same or very similar,” he said.
WHEN WILL MISSOURIANS BE ABLE TO WAGER ON SPORTS?
Amendment 2 gives the Missouri Gaming Commission until Dec. 1, 2025, to roll out sports gambling in the state.
Before that, the commission must create rules and regulations for sports betting and then create and process gaming licenses for operators and sportsbook staff, but it’s something staff has been preparing for in recent years.
“They’ve already been working with and meeting with other states who already have sports betting,” said Chairman of the Missouri Gaming Commission Jan Zimmerman.
So, when can Missourians expect to be able to gamble legally in the state?
“We’re looking at summer to get all of those administrative processes in place,” Zimmerman said.
That's a longer timeline than it took in Kansas, where Gov. Laura Kelly signed the bill legalizing sports gambling on May 12, 2022, and the state launched its program a few months later on Sept. 1, 2022.
Cardetti, of course, would love it if sports gambling went live next month, but he expressed faith in the Missouri Gaming Commission.
“They are really experienced, seasoned regulators,” Cardetti said. “They have a great staff over there, so we think they'll do a great job implementing this. ... We would expect and hope that Missourians will be able to place bets before that. Obviously, I couldn't give you a timeline. That's probably for the Missouri Gaming Commission to say, but I would sure love it in time for the NFL season next year.”
Kansas uses its sports-gambling tax revenue to try and attract professional sports teams, including efforts to lure the Chiefs and Royals across the state line.
The revenue in Missouri is earmarked for public-school funding.
Both states tax gambling revenue at 10%, which is on the lower end among 39 states that have legalized the practice.
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