At a recent committee hearing, Missouri state Senators recently debated and expressed conflicting viewpoints about details of bills that would legalize sports betting.
For example, state Senator Caleb Rowden’s Senate Bill 256 would tax sports wagering revenue at 6.75 percent, tying Iowa for the lowest rate in the U.S. Rowden said, “In my view, there’s really not much of a reason not to do it at this point. It’s already happening. We might as well legalize what’s already happening and make a little money off of it.”
However, state Senator Denny Hoskins, sponsor of another sports betting measure, Senate Bill 18, said the tax rate under Rowden’s bill is too low. “I just believe that we’re leaving a little bit too much money on the table for education,” Hoskins said. His bill would tax sports betting revenue at 9 percent, compared to Missouri’s 21 percent tax rate on casino revenue.
Mike Winter, executive director of the Missouri Gaming Association, said he believed SB 256 would establish the proper framework for moving forward on sports betting in the state. “All this is taking place illegally. We’re trying to drive it out of the illegal market and bring it into a legal, regulated environment where we can be assured that bets are handled properly, consumers are treated fairly and those who have issues with gambling cannot participate,” he said.
Hoskins said a major concern is guarding against youth betting, therefore strict safeguards would be implemented under his bill. “There are 3.4 million cell phones in the state, plus any computer, plus any iPad, so basically, this would be the biggest expansion of gambling in the history of the state of Missouri,” he noted said. Winter assured the committee that identity verification would be in place to prevent anyone who is under age from creating an account or gambling.
State Senator Tony Luetkemeyer introduced another sports betting measure, SB 217. It’s similar to SB 256 but would tax sports wagering revenue at 6.25 percent, which would be the lowest in the U.S. It also would require the use of official data from sports leagues. Luetkemeyer explained, “Consumers deserve to know that their bets are being settled using reliable, verified information directly from the leagues and distributed real-time to mitigate the risk of incorrect results for consumers. In the absence of this, consumers would have to rely on data that is pirated, web scraping or collected covertly in stadiums.”
Testifying against SB 217, Winter said the bill was good for sports leagues at the expense of state regulators, because the governing bodies of the sports leagues would hold a lot of power.
Representatives from the Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues spoke in support of both Rowden’s and Luetkemeyer’s bills.
