Market launch

Missouri sports betting went live December 1, 2025 — how the launch was built

By iGaming USA editorial desk Published Updated

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis against a blue sky
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Missouri voters approved sports wagering in November 2024; the market launched December 1, 2025. Photo: Daniel Erlandson / Pexels

The short answer

Missouri legal sports betting launched at 12:00 a.m. on December 1, 2025, per the Gaming Commission — a little over a year after voters approved Amendment 2 by a razor-thin margin in November 2024. The market opened with eight mobile operators at launch, a 10% tax rate, two 'untethered' licenses awarded to DraftKings and Circa, and a restriction banning player-prop bets on Missouri college teams.

In this article

Missouri flipped from 'no' to 'live' faster than almost any state in the legal-betting era. Voters approved Amendment 2 on November 5, 2024 — by a margin of roughly 14,000 votes out of nearly 3 million — and the Gaming Commission's December 1, 2025 launch notice confirms wagering went live at 12:00 a.m., thirteen months after the vote.

What the launch framework looks like

  • Constitutional amendment, not statute: Amendment 2 wrote the framework into the state constitution — a 10% wagering tax, licensing through the Missouri Gaming Commission, and revenue directed toward education and problem-gambling programs.
  • Tethered plus untethered licenses: casinos and professional sports teams could host mobile 'skins,' and the commission also issued two licenses that needed no in-state partner — taken by DraftKings and Circa.
  • Eight mobile operators were live at launch, per launch-week reporting, with retail books at casinos opening alongside.
  • A college-prop carve-out: wagers on individual Missouri college athletes' performances are prohibited — the state's teams can be bet on, its players can't.
  • License cost was set at $500,000 for the untethered mobile licenses, reflecting the market's expected size.

Why Missouri was the fight everyone watched

Missouri sat surrounded: every bordering state except Oklahoma already had legal betting, so the amendment campaign — funded largely by the operators and backed by the state's professional teams — was the test of whether ballot initiatives could still open new markets in 2024. The narrow win, and the 13-month runway to launch, now stand as the model for states where legislatures won't act but voters might. It also arrived as the national growth map shifted: with most major states already live, new-market launches like Missouri's are increasingly the industry's main source of fresh handle rather than expansion in established states.

For the map Missouri joined — and the separate world of online casino — see where online casino is legal in the US and how to read the revenue reports new markets feed into.

Sources