Missouri Sports Betting Launch Date Revealed

Following a narrow victory at the polls, Missouri sports betting is going to be legalized.

The election result is a huge win for Winning for Missouri Education, the coalition backed by pro sports franchises as well as online sportsbooks in the USA that sponsored the petition which appeared on the electoral ballot. Multiple attempts to legalize sports betting in Missouri through the House of Representatives and Senate previously failed. Most of the push-back originated from the latter. Certain members, albeit one in particular, filibustered over the absence of video lottery terminals.

This prompted the formation of Winning for Missouri. They cobbled together more than 300,000 signatures on their petition for Missouri sports betting. Their pitch is built around how much revenue from gambling can do for the educational system in The Show Me State.

Some have questioned whether their framing is misleading. But, well, this does not matter now. Missouri sports betting is legal. But…you cannot bet on sports in Missouri just yet. They still need to launch. And while a concrete date is not yet official, they do have a tentative timeline to roll it out.

Missouri Sports Betting Unlikely to Launch Before Summer 2025

Every time a general election leads to the legalization of sports betting, the first question tends to be: Will it be live in time to bet on the NFL Super Bowl? In this case, the answer appears to be…no.

Super Bowl LIX will take place on February 9, 2025. Apparently, the earliest Missouri sports betting will launch is this summer. And from the sound of things, even this might be a little ambitious. “I would hate to get anybody’s expectation up that they would be able to place a sports bet here in Missouri in the next month or two,” Jack Cardetti, a spokesperson for Winning for Missouri Education, said after November’s election.

Never mind a month or two. There seems to be a chance that Missouri sports betting will not launch until the end of 2025. Here is more from Ryan Collins of the Springfield Daily Citizen:

“The sports betting industry will be regulated by the Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC), which expects the first legal wagers to be placed in the state mid-to-late summer 2025, [according to] Chairman Jan Zimmerman. There’s a large load of regulatory work that needs to be done before the first bets are placed. ‘The constitutional language says we have to be up and running by December 1 of 2025, but it’s our hope we get there much sooner than that,” Zimmerman said in a phone interview Nov. 7. Optimistically, in order to get through all those administrative processes, we’re looking mid-to-late summer (2025) to get all of those things in place.’”

The key word here is “optimistically.” This seems to imply Winning for Missouri Education is hoping rather than expecting a launch by this summer. But these timelines can be pushed back. It happens all the time. And for Missouri, any delays could result in missing out on the rise in online sports betting across the United States that coincides with the start of football season in September.

Here’s Why Missouri May Not Need to Worry About Sports Betting Delays

The tentative Missouri sports betting timeline has the state launching operations in about nine months. That is fairly ambitious relative to how other states have rolled out their processes. Then again, Missouri may be well positioned to expedite the process.

As Zimmerman told Collins: “The advantage to being relatively late to the game with sports betting is that there are a number of states all across the United States who have had sports betting for a while. That gives us the opportunity to pick and choose and talk to those folks on what works well and what doesn’t.”

This is a great point. Thirty-states legalized some form of sports betting before Missouri. More than half of those, meanwhile, have regulatory arms set up for online sports betting sites. The Show Me State, then, is not working from a blank slate.

Plus, it is not like the state is new to overseeing gambling itself. The Missouri Gaming Commission is already established. They are the body that regulates casino betting in Missouri. So while they need to figure out a whole lot, they benefit from not having to create a gaming commission from scratch.

The Biggest Factors That Will Determine the Missouri Sports Betting Timeline

Two will ultimately determine how long it takes Missouri sports betting to launch. First and foremost, there is the licensing process. 

Online sportsbooks in the United States must apply to operate inside the market. Historically, that process can take time. Missouri may have a leg up here as well, since certain sportsbooks helped fund the wagering initiative. But the order of operations can nevertheless be a time drain.

Beyond that, setting up retail licenses and locations could take even longer. Sports teams will have the opportunity to create sportsbooks at their home venues. That requires the building of structures on top of the licensing process. The same goes for any other retail locations that will be off-site. 

There is a chance Missouri online sports betting launches first and then retail locations not yet ready can follow. However, this would be the reverse of most other states. Usually, tribal casinos are given first dibs at launching, since they are physically located in the state and more likely to create jobs and funnel money back into the economy.

Still, it is all very early in the process. Missouri sports betting was only legalized a couple of short weeks ago. There will be twists and turns and probably changes to the launching timeline in the coming months. At the very least, though, Missourians should be able to bet on football at some point during the 2025 season.

Take a look at this list of the top online sportsbooks so you can find one that works for all of your sports betting needs: