Missouri voters were projected to have approved amendment 2, which allows sports gambling in the state, with just more than 50% of the vote in favor and all but 20 precincts reporting as of 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The amendment calls for a 10% sales tax on all collected gambling revenue to be directed toward funding education and the compulsive gambling fund.
The Missouri Gaming Commission will now be in charge of enforcing gambling regulations on operators.
The amendment was pushed by a group calling itself Winning for Missouri Education, a coalition of sports teams and gambling operators. The group’s spokesperson, Jack Cardetti, said Missouri has been missing out on sports gambling revenue for years and this amendment would allow taxed revenue to fund the state’s education.
“Every day, tens of thousands of Missourians are betting on sports, either on illegal offshore websites or they’re going to one of our seven neighboring states,” Jack Cardetti, spokesperson for Winning for Missouri Education said before the election. “As it currently stands, Missouri is getting no benefit out of that.”
The coalition commissioned a study from research firm Eilers & Krejcik, which found that $560 million could be generated from sports gambling in the first five years. With a 10% sales tax, Missouri could acquire $100 million dollars in taxes, according to the report.
But, according to a report by the Missouri state auditor’s office, the amendment would allow gambling operators to deduct any federal taxes. If receipts show negative income after deductions are applied, the operator would not have to pay any taxes to the state. Previous Missouri Business Alert reporting showed that Eilers & Krejcik’s study only took a federal excise tax into consideration.
Opponents of the amendment have also argued that gambling revenue would replace existing education funding rather than adding to it. While the amendment doesn’t explicitly outline whether the income will supplant or supplement the education budget, Winning for Missouri Education has said it’s lawmakers’ job to ensure this money serves as additional revenue.
Previous Missouri Business Alert reporting showed sports gambling could lead to higher credit card balances and an increase in lottery play according to researchers. The 10% sales tax revenue has also been low in states such as Ohio which has similar rules to Amendment 2.
Now that the Amendment 2 ballot measure is projected to pass, lawmakers must decide the start date for legalizing sports betting, which will be no later than Dec. 1, 2025.
Missouri voters also are projected to have rejected Amendment 5 by about 70,000 votes with 20 precincts left to be counted. The Amendment would have added an additional gambling boat license to the state’s 13-license limit and would have paved the way for a casino to be built in the Lake of the Ozarks.
The failure of the amendment means that the cap of gambling boat licenses in the state will remain at 13, and the regulations will remain not as permissive to a casino in the area.
Despite its failure there may soon still be a casino in the area - the Osage Nation has said that it's interested in opening a casino in the area.
Missourians also rejected Amendment 6 by 60.5% with 97% of ballots counted, which would have reinstated a $3 dollar court fee to criminal and traffic cases that goes toward the sheriff’s retirement fund.
The rejected fee was in place since 1983, until a 2021 Missouri Supreme Court case ruled it was unconstitutional. Before it was overturned, the fee generated over $2.1 million for the fund.
With its failure, it is likely the state legislature will look for another way to fund the sheriff’s retirement fund.
Missouri voters approved Amendment 7 by 67.6% with 75% of ballots counted, which adds a constitutional provision that prevents ranked choice voting. Additionally, there is a redundant provision in the ballot language that says non-citizens can’t vote in a Missouri election – which is already illegal federally and in Missouri.
With its passage, ranked choice voting is now outlawed at a state level, with a carve out for certain non-partisan municipal elections in St. Louis.
