JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — At his home in suburban St. Louis, Brett Koenig can pull out his smartphone and open a sports betting app. But he can’t make a bet. He is blocked by his message popping up notifying you that you are not in a legal location.
Missouri is one of more than a dozen states where sports betting has remained illegal for more than five years. The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way. May each country adopt it.
“It seems ridiculous that we can’t do something when other people can,” Koenig says. He launched a social media campaign called “Let MO Play” to rally support for legal sports betting in his home state.
Other states have collectively collected more than $4 billion in taxes from more than $280 billion wagered on sports since 2018. Vermont becomes the latest state to accept sports betting. From January 11thHowever, the possibility of expanding to more states in 2024 appears uncertain due to political resistance and, in some cases, competing economic interests of existing gambling operators.
“There’s a reason why the few states that haven’t legalized are the last ones left, because they all have multiple hurdles,” said California-based consulting firm Eilers & Krajcik Gaming. said Becca Gidden, policy director.
After a “whirlwind” of expansion, the field for further sports betting has narrowed to a group of states where various stakeholders all “want to maximize what they can get out of the legalization framework,” a senior company official said. Vice President Chris Silk said. Government relations for the industry’s leading American Gaming Association. “So there can be some friction.”
States where sports betting remains illegal are Alabama, Alaska, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.
California and Texas, the two most populous states in the country, will offer the biggest prizes for sports bettors. But neither seems particularly likely to adopt it in 2024.
California voters were overwhelmingly defeated last year. Two competing sports betting efforts A record $463 million was raised by supporters and opponents. The advertising barrage was fueled by divisions between online gaming companies, tribal casinos, and racetracks. Those tensions continue, with Native American tribes opposing a new sports betting initiative that requires signatures to appear on the 2024 ballot.
of proposed sale The transfer of members of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team to the politically active family that owns the Las Vegas Sands casino company could lead to a further push for legal sports betting in Texas. There is increasing speculation that this may be the case. But in 2024, the state Legislature won’t be in regular session, so Texas won’t have a way to put citizen initiatives on the ballot.
Neighboring Oklahoma already has a number of tribally operated casinos.Republican Governor Kevin Stitt announced the plan In November, it will allow in-person sports betting at tribal casinos and online sports betting through state-licensed platforms. But his plan does not appear to have support from the tribes with which Mr. Stitt has feuded.
Minnesota is probably the next most likely state to authorize sports betting, but that would likely require a bipartisan vote in the Senate. Democrats hold a narrow one-seat advantage over Republicans in the Senate. Lawmakers struggled last year to resolve differences between tribal casinos, which seek exclusive rights to online and in-person sports betting, and racetracks, which also seek a larger share of the gambling market. But they will try again.
“From the tribe’s perspective, now is the time. They want it to happen this year,” said Democratic state Sen. Matt Kline, the sponsor of the sports betting bill.
Efforts to legalize sports betting in Missouri have repeatedly stalled in the state Senate, but Republican Sen. Denny Hoskins has been pushing back against legally questionable slot machine formats installed at convenience stores and truck stops. They argue that it needs to be combined with regulation of video games. Casinos are against it.
Online sports betting companies, casinos, professional sports teams and video gaming terminal companies have joined forces to hire about 80 lobbyists in Missouri.
The St. Louis Cardinals also lead a coalition of professional sports teams in the state. initiative petition Add sports betting to the November ballot. But Senate President Pro-Tem Caleb Rhoden has doubts about the prospects of both the initiative petition and the bill, lamenting that Missouri “may well lose some pretty significant economic activity.”
Data shows that Missourians are interested in sports betting. His GeoComply Solutions, a technology company, collected his 13.5 million attempts from his 280,000 devices to access his mobile sports betting site in Missouri from mid-June to mid-December. Processed location confirmation. About 48% in Kansas and 40% in Illinois tried to use a sportsbook. They were blocked from doing so.
When Koenig wants to bet on sports, he drives 45 minutes from his home in Missouri to Illinois. he is not alone.
GeoComply processed 42,000 location verifications from 1,900 online sports betting accounts that traveled from Missouri to Illinois border towns in the past six months. When the Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 10, GeoComply tallied 786 location checks from 570 sportsbook accounts traveling from the Missouri border town to Kansas.
“It’s very easy for people to walk across the bridge, place their bets, and then go home and watch the game,” Geocomply spokesman John Pappas said. “In states where this is illegal, we see this thousands of times a day, thousands of times a week.”
In Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp has expressed openness to legalizing sports betting. But the effort stalled last year after the Senate rejected it. constitutional amendment bill That would have let voters decide the issue. The debate is complicated by the fact that casino and horse racing supporters want to use sports betting to legalize these forms of gambling as well.
Although still up for debate, Georgia may be the most realistic candidate to authorize sports betting in 2024, Gidden said. She is counting on well-funded lobbying efforts from online gambling operators, sports teams and others.
Legal sports betting in Alabama would also require a constitutional amendment approved by voters. In Congress, sports betting proposals are intertwined with broader efforts to expand gambling beyond current tribal casinos, dog racing tracks and charitable bingo operators. No one has succeeded yet.
Republican state Sen. Greg Albritton said some lawmakers are working on new gambling legislation that would include casinos, lotteries and sports betting.
“Whatever happens, if I have my way, this issue will be discussed this year,” he said.
___
Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed from Montgomery, Alabama.