Missouri lawmakers consider legal sports betting after quarter-million bets rejected Super Bowl weekend
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Attempts were made to bet on the Super Bowl from Missouri at least 250,000 times on Super Bowl weekend, according to data from GeoComply.
With sports betting still against the law here, they were all blocked.
The American Gaming Association expected a record 50.4 million people to place bets on the Super Bowl this year. Despite Missouri's own Kansas City Chiefs being the victors, no one in Missouri could legally win a bet. Lawmakers are working harder this session to pass a bill legalizing sports betting after Kansas did so last year.
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in the Missouri House of Representatives on a sports wagering bill. Sports wagering as a concept has bipartisan support. At a hearing last week, only two people testified against it. Representatives from nearly all of the professional sports teams in Missouri were in support of the bill.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Davie Griffith (R-Jefferson City), is different than other bills because it taxes casinos at a higher rate.
"Most of the bills that are being proposed in the House and the Senate this year are looking at 10 percent," Griffith said. "And we felt like 21 percent, we looked at other states, what other states that have got this are doing. And we felt like 21 percent was a fair and equal amount."
GeoComply co-founder and CEO Anna Sainsbury said Super Bowl LVII was record-breaking in terms of bets.
“While Kansas continues to reap the benefits of legalization, Missouri has to stay on the sidelines until lawmakers pass a law," Sainsbury said. "Every state that regulates sports betting is a blow to the predatory black market that operates in the shadows, providing zero safeguards for bettors and no economic benefit to the local community.”
GeoComply Senior Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs John Pappas said Missouri is becoming an island surrounded by states that have legalized sports betting.
"People in Missouri don't have the consumer protection when they're betting online that someone would in Kansas or in Illinois," Pappas said.
