Missouri Sports Betting on Life Support
What looked like a sure thing is anything but as we headed into Wednesday November 20.
Missouri’s Amendment 2 sports gambling vote was already a nail-biter with voters narrowly approving based on Election Day counting. Still, at the time, it appeared as if Missouri would become the 39th state to approve sports betting.
Headlines proclaimed that Missouri voters had adopted a constitutional amendment legalizing sports betting by a razor-thin margin: 50.07% yes to 49.93% no. With 2.93 million people casting ballots, the measure passed by less than 5,000 votes based on what had been tallied up on Election Day. Sports betting was expected to be available in the state via regulated apps no later than Dec. 1, 2025. Currently, those living in the Show Me State can place bets at offshore sportsbooks and local bookies.
The votes, however, kept coming in.
This week we are learning that the Christian County clerk added an additional 9,800 votes to the county’s certified total submitted to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office. Clerk Paula Brumfield says those were absentee, mail-in, and provisional ballots. Much of these were not in favor of the amendment.
KY3 Springfield reports that, in the late hours of election night, the clerk postponed the count of those ballots until Wednesday morning. According to the clerk, her team did not count them on election day because the machines would have erased all of the ballot data if they had been shut down. Brumfield said the decision was made with the agreement of the Republican and Democratic party representatives in the office.
The certified votes from Christian County brought the narrow margin of the unofficial results on Amendment 2 (sports betting) to around 400. As of 9:15 a.m., the updated difference was 747 votes.
That number was expected to fluctuate throughout the day Tuesday as counties completed the certification process.
A recount is likely as a result of the updated vote count.
In a bizarre twist, it's a casino operator that may claim victory if the NO vote succeeds in the end.
Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment was the Caesars-backed anti-sports betting campaign in Missouri. Records show that the organization spent $4 million to influence voters to reject the referendum question on November 5th.
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