KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Professional sports teams in Missouri have been lobbying intensely in recent years in hopes the state legislature will legalize sports gambling, but those efforts have yet to bear fruit.
As such, there is currently no plan to include a sportsbook at a remodeled GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
The team announced plans last week for an $800-million renovation of the stadium and Harry S. Truman Sports Complex grounds if voters pass a sales-tax extension on April 2.
“If it actually came to fruition, we’d look at it and I think there are ways we could retrofit something if it makes sense,” Chiefs President Mark Donovan said. “We probably have a partner who would want to retrofit with us, right? But right now, we are not contemplating that as part of this plan.”
The Chiefs announced the plans for and renderings of a reimagined Arrowhead, which would be complete for the 2030 or 2031 seasons, if the existing 3/8-cent sales tax gets extended beyond its current 2031 sunset.
The newest push by professional sports teams in Missouri — including the Current and Royals as well as the St. Louis Cardinals, Blues and MLS franchise — aims to bypass the legislature and let voters decide the future of sports gambling in the state.
“We’ve been supportive and been working on this for four and a half years,” Donovan said. “I’ve been in Jeff City more on this issue than any other issue. We think it makes sense. We are very supportive of the coalition. I think (President) Bill DeWitt and the Cardinals deserve the bulk of the credit, because they’ve done the work and they’re in it every single day. We appreciate that.”
Sports-gambling legislation sailed through the Missouri House of Representatives last year, but a group of ultra-conservative Republicans have consistently stalled passage in the Missouri Senate, primarily over regulation of video lottery terminals and similar devices that have popped up across the state at bars and convenience stores.
Sports gambling is a multi-billion industry and it’s currently legal in some form in 38 states, including Kansas and six other states — Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska and Tennessee — that border Missouri.
“We think it makes sense,” Donovan said. “The states around us have proven that. If you look at what Kansas is doing and the amount of revenue they’re generating, that’s just revenue that we, as a state, are not getting.”
Nebraska only allows in-person sports betting, while Tennessee only allows online wagers.
Oklahoma is the only one of Missouri’s border states without some form of legalized sporting gambling.
Two other states, Georgia and Minnesota, also are considering legislation to legalize sports betting this year.
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