February is here, and once again, the Kansas City Chiefs are ready to play in the Super Bowl.
Sadly, Missouri residents will not be playing — sports betting is still illegal in the state, despite residents voting to legalize it in November 2024.
For fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, placing a bet means heading to any of the surrounding states (all of which have legalized sports betting): Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, or Nebraska.
Local news publications cite numerous examples of restaurants and venues sitting close to state lines where customers leave their tables, cross the street to place a bet, and then cross back to continue their evening.
While Missouri officials are working hard to introduce sports betting — with laws passed, that involve reviewing applications and conducting background checks — the most optimistic estimates for sports betting in Missouri are for June 2025.
So for Chiefs fans, Superbowl LIX, which begins February 9, will be a repeat of the five times the team has played in the Super Bowl in the last six years: no way to legally place a wager.
Missouri Gaming Commission chair Jan Zimmerman told KSHB: “It’s not a quick process, not only for sports betting but for any licensing process we do with casinos or other individuals. It just takes a while to get it done.
“We got a gasp from the staff when we said we wanted to [be live by] mid to late summer, because it is so involved. That whole application process is really intensive and really takes a lot of work by the background investigators.
“It takes a lot of work by the people who are trying to be licensed, because they have to get us all this paperwork about their financial backgrounds and all that. We knew that even June was going to be really aggressive.
“The staff, they’ve been working nights and weekends and holidays to try and make sure that we can get it out there.”
The state has until December 2025 to implement voters’ wishes, but the commission does appear to be moving relatively fast, in terms of enacting legislation and assessing vendors. Officials said the existing 13 brick-and-mortar casinos that operate in Missouri are free to apply for a license to offer sports gambling in-person and online.
The amendment also provides for two licenses unaffiliated with casinos, opening the doors for sports gambling apps to apply for a license. Most players will automatically think of DraftKings and FanDuel as obvious contenders, the largest sports gambling apps.
But Zimmerman told KSHB: “It’s not just FanDuel and DraftKings. We’re going to have a process, a selection process, to determine those, whether it’s a point system or something like that.”
For now, Missouri will have to wait — but this may will be the last time residents sit down to watch the Super Bowl without being able to place a personal wager in their own state.
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