Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. (7) celebrates with his teammates after beating the Baltimore Orioles at Kauffman Stadium on May 3, 2023.
USA TODAY Sports
Columbia
After Missouri lawmakers once again failed to act this year, the Kansas City Royals are weighing whether to place a statewide ballot measure in front of voters to legalize sports betting.
“The Kansas City Royals are aligned with the coalition of professional sports franchises across the state and share the same frustration when it comes to the lack of progress in Jefferson City,” Adam Sachs, the Royals’ senior vice president and chief legal officer, said in a statement to The Star. “We are open to considering a joint initiative petition campaign at some point soon.”
The comment from the Royals follows similar statements from the St. Louis Cardinals, an indication that two of the state’s major professional sports teams fear the Missouri General Assembly will not be able to act on sports betting in the near future. But the teams appear confident that a sports betting ballot initiative would pass if placed in front of voters.
Missouri’s failure to enact sports betting legalization comes as at least 33 states, including Kansas, have some form of legal sports gambling. Lawmakers and sports gambling advocates have argued Missouri is missing out on millions of dollars in tax revenue from fans who can now travel to neighboring states like Kansas and Illinois to place bets.
State Rep. Dan Houx, a Warrensburg Republican who has been pushing to legalize sports betting, said a coalition of sports teams, casino operators and sports books were in talks near the end of session about putting together a ballot initiative.
“I would definitely be supportive of it,” he said. “I think it’s also something we need to do legislatively, but if we can’t get it done, it seems like the initiative petition process is the way to go.”
Houx said he planned to file another bill to legalize sports gambling next year.
If the Royals and other teams push forward on a ballot initiative, the measure could face a few obstacles. Missouri Republican lawmakers are planning to file legislation next year to make it harder for Missourians to amend the state constitution through the ballot initiative process.
While efforts to overhaul the process failed this year, lawmakers, incensed by the possibility of a ballot measure to legalize abortion, have promised to return to the issue next year. Whatever changes the General Assembly approves must then itself go to a statewide vote. Currently, voters can approve a change to the state constitution with just a simple majority or more than 50%.
“We’ve got to come back next year and try to run that again,” Houx said of the initiative petition overhaul. “I believe, at the current standing of initiative petitions, I believe (sports betting) would pass.”
The Royals aren’t the only Missouri team considering a ballot question in the wake of lawmakers’ inaction. St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier this month that the team was taking a serious look at putting sports betting legislation in front of voters in 2024.
Representatives for the Kansas City Chiefs, who testified in favor of sports betting legislation this year, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. A spokesperson for the Kansas City Current, which also supported Missouri’s sports betting bills, declined comment.
A spokesperson for Sporting Kansas City, which is based in Kansas, said that the organization was supportive of sports betting but was focused solely on Kansas.
While lawmakers have consistently touted broad statewide support for legalized sports betting, polling released in March casts doubt on that argument. The poll, released by Saint Louis University and British pollster YouGov, found that a plurality of 41% of those surveyed disagreed that betting on college and professional sports should be legal, while 35% agreed. The remaining 24% said they were not sure.
“It’s largely assumed that voters are in favor of sports betting,” Steve Rogers, a SLU associate professor of political science who directed the poll, said at the time. “I don’t want to go that far and say voters are opposed to sports betting, but at least this is suggestive evidence to me that maybe it isn’t as supported.”
Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, blamed Missouri Republicans for the state’s inability to legalize sports gambling. He pointed to the party’s platform, which prohibits the further expansion of gambling, and Republican efforts to overhaul the initiative petition process.
“At this point, it seems the only way Missouri will see legalized sports wagering is to vote out the Republican majority or address sports wagering directly through an Initiative Petition,” Rizzo said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Republicans also want to make it even harder for voters to pass anything through Initiative Petitions. It seems no matter which way you turn, Republicans are there to stop the legalization of sports wagering.”
A voter-approved ballot measure might be Missouri’s best shot at legalizing sports betting. It would come as sports betting legislation has been bogged down in the Missouri Senate by a dispute over video lottery terminals. The casino-like slot machines have proliferated across the state in recent years at gas stations, truck stops and fraternal organizations and exist in a legal gray area.
Disagreements among lawmakers have largely centered around whether a sports betting bill should also regulate and tax the gas station slots. State Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican, has primarily been the main blockade, insisting that any sports betting bill also legalize and tax the gas station slots.
Hoskins did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
In the final week of the legislative session this year, Hoskins and other lawmakers appeared to be engaged in last-ditch talks to find a compromise. But no breakthrough was ultimately reached. Senate Majority Leader O’Laughlin, a Shelbina Republican, and other senators used procedural tactics to bring a sports betting bill to the Senate floor but Hoskins, unwilling to support a bill that didn’t legalize VLTs, had it withdrawn.
In the Senate’s end-of-session press conference, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, said he was embarrassed that sports betting legislation had failed because of the gas station slots. He placed the blame squarely at Hoskins.
“He is solely responsible for why we don’t have sports betting in Missouri, no more, no less,” Rowden told reporters. “So either he finds more friends, or he needs to get out of the way and let Missourians be able to do this thing that they should have been able to do four or five years ago.”
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