JEFFERSON CITY — The leader of the Missouri House said Thursday that the odds of sports betting becoming legal in Missouri this year are “decreasing daily.”
“It seems the sun is setting,” House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, said when asked about the prospects of a last-minute legislative push to establish a framework for regulating sports wagering in the state.
The House sent a bill to the Senate where it has languished. The Senate version has been debated by the full chamber but not formally acted upon.
Starting Monday, the Republican-controlled House and Senate have three weeks left in their annual session to finish the budget and check the box on other top GOP priorities, ranging from making it harder to amend the state Constitution to expanding school choice.
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The issue of sports betting remains in the mix, but there are growing signs that it could get left by the wayside once again because of lingering disagreements over illegal slot machines that have flooded the state.
Negotiators have tried to separate the issue of sports betting from video lottery terminals, but Sen. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, has not relented in his belief that the two should be tied together.
On Tuesday, officials from the Ƶ Cardinals and other Missouri-based sports teams made the rounds in the Capitol hoping to jump-start talks to get Missouri on board with 33 other states that now regulate betting on athletic events.
It marked at least the second time in the past month that sports teams were in the capital city seeking to push the proposal over the finish line. In March, for example, Kansas City Royals brass, who also want to build a new baseball stadium in downtown Kansas City, met with Gov. Mike Parson in the Governor’s Mansion.
But House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said she isn’t sensing any significant shift in the debate.
“It doesn’t seem like the Senate has any urgency to get it done,” Quade said Thursday. “I do think there is still time, but it doesn’t seem to be such a big priority as it was at the beginning of session.”
Under the latest proposal, people could bet on their mobile devices or go to casinos or venues near sports stadiums and areas where betting windows would be allowed.
Bets would be taxed at a rate of 15% under the last version debated in the Senate. The plan could generate an estimated $30 million for the state in its first full year of operation. Cities that are home to casinos would receive an estimated $3.2 million.
The measure also sets aside $1 million to combat compulsive gambling.
Supporters say Missourians are already betting on sports, but the tax revenue is going to other states like Kansas and Illinois, where it is legal.
GeoComply, a firm that provides online player location detection services, said it blocked more than 250,000 access attempts from people located in Missouri during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win in February.
Plocher, who oversees a chamber that has already approved a sports betting bill, bemoaned the fate of the measure in the Senate, as well as myriad other House priorities that have become bogged down in the upper chamber heading toward a May 12 adjournment date.
“They are sitting on a sundry of good products that I think benefits all Missourians,” Plocher said.