KANSAS CITY, Missouri – It was found that more than twice as many people are ready to vote “yes” as “no” right now on Missouri’s Amendment 2, which would allow people to bet on sports. There are still 23% who have not chosen.
Covers help bettors figure out which teams are the best bets for future games. A senior writer at Covers.com named Ryan Butler jokes that he writes about the less interesting things.
Because of this, he drove across Missouri for a week. Missouri is one of only 13 states left in the US where sports betting is not allowed.
A lot of what I did for this story was just talking to voters and bettors on the ground, Butler said.
Before he saw it, he had only heard about a trend along Missouri’s borders. It took him from St. Louis to Kansas City.
Forms of opposition to the Missouri sports betting question
“You look around and see that people with Missouri license plates are just coming and going from parking lots in Kansas City, Kansas, and stopping to talk on their phones for maybe five to ten minutes,” Butler said.
People don’t just park in parking places; they also park on the sides of off-ramps.
A man from Liberty, Missouri, named Austin Lewis said, “Every Sunday it’s lined up here.” Lewis drives I-635 to Kansas to bet on sports.
“Every day it’s a thirty-minute drive, and I’m pretty much ready for it to be legal in Missouri,” he said.
It’s worth it for sports fans.
“The games I don’t like to watch become interesting to me when I bet money on them.”
Butler says that even in Columbia, Missouri, he found many people like Lewis who were ready to bet. The FOX4 Emerson College/The Hill Poll says that 52% of Missourians support sports betting, 25% are against it, and 23% aren’t sure.
However, Caesar’s, the owners of Harrah’s North Kansas City Casino, has now come out against it with $4 million in opposition.
“It will be interesting to see if this opposition measure helps sway voters now that it has some money from a casino,” Butler said.
Caesars hasn’t said why it wants people to vote “no” on Amendment 2 yet. It’s thought to have something to do with how the sports betting licenses would be given to companies that support the amendment, like Fan Duel and Draft Kings, without giving Caesars any extra benefits for running three casinos in Missouri.