On Thursday, Missouri’s professional sports teams joined forces to submit over 340,000 voter signatures in support of a ballot proposal to legalize sports betting in November. The campaign received help from popular team mascots, including Fredbird from the Cardinals, Sluggerrr from the Royals, and Louie from the St. Louis Blues. These mascots eagerly delivered boxes filled with signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office in Jefferson City.
The initiative in Missouri is an effort to bypass the Senate, where legislation for sports betting has repeatedly stalled. Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft will now need to validate the signatures before the proposal can officially be placed on the ballot. The campaign needs approximately 180,000 signatures to meet the qualification requirements. Currently, 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of sports betting, with 30 states and Washington D.C. permitting online wagering.
Missouri is one of only twelve states where sports wagering is still illegal more than five years after the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for states to legalize it. The coalition behind the initiative includes six professional sports teams: Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Blues, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Current and St. Louis City soccer teams and 13 casinos within its borders that would offer onsite and mobile sports betting if approved by voters.
If approved by voters, each casino would be allowed to operate one mobile betting platform while two other operators could also be licensed directly by the Missouri Gaming Commission.
The proposed constitutional amendment also outlines that a minimum of $5 million annually in licensing fees and taxes would be allocated towards problem gambling programs, with