Betting in Missouri

Missouri didn’t legalize sports betting with a flimsy statute that can be reworked every session – it did it via Amendment 2 in November 2024, a voter-approved constitutional change that explicitly authorizes sports wagering and hands regulatory control to the Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC).

That matters because it gives the market structural stability. Any serious attempt to roll back or radically reshape sports betting now has to contend with constitutional language, not just a simple bill repeal. For bettors, that usually translates into fewer “will-they-won’t-they” scares and a clearer long-term legal runway.

Under Amendment 2, Missouri taxes sportsbook gross gaming revenue at 10%. That’s way lower than heavyweights like New York or Pennsylvania, but higher than ultra-low tax states that sometimes leave money on the table.

At 10%, operators have enough margin to offer decently competitive odds and recurring promos without getting strangled by the state. You’re unlikely to see the kind of aggressive price squeezing that happens in 30–50% tax environments, and the state still pulls meaningful revenue out of a market that just went live in December 2025. It’s a very “Show Me” middle ground: not operator charity, not operator punishment.

Missouri takes a middle-path approach to college sports. You can bet on in-state programs like Missouri, Saint Louis, SEMO, and Missouri State, along with all the usual tournament and out-of-state college action. But player prop bets involving in-state college athletes are off the board.

That structure mirrors what we’ve seen in a few other cautious states: team markets are fair game, but they draw a hard line at individual in-state college players.

Practically, it means your Saturdays still look normal from a spread/total/moneyline perspective - you just won’t be building SGPs around a Mizzou QB’s passing yards or a local guard’s points+assists combo.

Missouri launched a full mobile sportsbook market in December 2025, but stopped short of legalizing real-money online casinos. There’s no framework for statewide online slots, blackjack, or live-dealer tables – that action is still confined to physical casinos.

That vacuum is exactly where sweepstakes and social casinos slide in. These sites use virtual currencies and sweepstakes mechanics to stay on the right side of Missouri law while still offering slot-style and table-style gameplay that can lead to real-money redemptions.

For Missouri players, they’re not a perfect substitute for a proper legal online casinos, but they are the closest thing to casino-like entertainment you will find, while the legislature continues to dodge the online casino fight.

Missouri formally legalized and regulated DFS back in 2016 with the Missouri Fantasy Sports Consumer Protection Act (HB 1941), which handed oversight to the Missouri Gaming Commission. The law defines fantasy contests pretty tightly - outcomes have to be based on the accumulated stats of multiple athletes over time, and it explicitly warns against contests that just mirror prop betting on a single player or a single event.

For a while, operators pushed that boundary with classic “vs-the-house” Pick’em cards – over/under-style props dressed up as fantasy. That didn’t last, however, as in 2023–24 the Missouri Gaming Commission sent cease-and-desist letters to operators running those pick’em-style products, forcing them either to shut the format down or rebuild it as a true peer-to-peer game rather than a shadow sportsbook.

Now, only a few Pick 'Em platforms remain in operation, all of them using peer-to-peer contest formats that don't run afoul of state law.

Like almost every regulated U.S. state, Missouri’s sportsbooks are locked out of political, economic, and pop-culture wagering. You won’t be betting on presidential races, inflation prints, Oscars outcomes, or reality-TV eliminations at DraftKings or FanDuel - that’s all off-limits under mainstream sports betting rules.

But prediction markets live in a different lane. Federally regulated platforms supervised by agencies like the CFTC can offer event-based contracts that cover elections, macro data, and cultural events, and those products sit outside Missouri’s sports betting statute.

For Missouri residents, that means the “cannot bet on politics” line only applies to sportsbooks; if you want real-money exposure on real-world outcomes, prediction markets are the door the law quietly leaves open.