When most people consider Missouri, they probably think of Branson, a tourist mecca filled with arts, crafts, and a variety of musical acts. While the area nestled in the Ozark Mountains certainly does its part to draw in out-of-state revenue, the casinos scattered about Missouri are just as proficient at generating cash for the government’s coffers.
Missouri is more liberal on gambling than they are in most other areas, and were one of the first states in the country to authorize commercial casinos. These casinos came in the form of riverboats, which basically just means that they were built on barges, which technically puts them in the water; the ‘boats’ don’t go anywhere.affiliate program
Other forms of gambling in the state include charitable gaming, which also allows for certain games of skill. The organizations conducting the gambling pay license fees while the taxes are assessed on the sale of the gambling products, in other words, the suppliers of the products pay the taxes.
Horse racing is legal within the state, as is pari-mutuel wagering; however, the state currently has no horse racing tracks and there are not any simulcast wagering sections at the casinos. We can expect that to change if Missouri ever passes a sports betting bill, which they have still failed to do (as of the time of this writing). The Kansas City Star is not particularly pleased.
That’s absolutely right! The writer also (simultaneously) makes an excellent case for legalizing and regulating online casinos, as well. The state should also legalize and regulate video lottery parlors in the manner of states such as Illinois, West Virginia and Montana. When will this happen? According to the Star, Kansas Rep. John Barker had this to say:
Having lived in the state, I can say that there are only two speeds at which anything happens in the State of Missouri: Extremely slow and stop. “Giving it some priority,” will, at best, move sports betting into the extremely slow category. I don’t know why the state doesn’t feel like it couldn’t get its hands on those sweet, sweet tax revenues soon enough, but apparently, it’s not a huge concern for them. In the meantime, as mentioned by the Star, residents will just make the bets elsewhere.
That’s great news because, if Missouri (as a state) were to ever enter a race, the result would be DNF. (Did not finish) If the people of Missouri were anything like the politicians, no housefire would ever be escaped because they’d be too busy diddling around. Granted, Barker is a representative from the state of Kansas, but you’d have to live on the western side of Missouri or eastern side of Kansas to even know where one stops and the other starts, and even then, you often end up in the opposite state without even knowing it.
We doubt if online gambling is going to be on the table anytime soon, especially given the state’s preference for doing things approximately 457 years after all of the other states do. Surprisingly, Missouri was one of the first states to authorize and regulate daily fantasy sports (DFS) because they considered it a game of skill.
We guess they’re just liberal when it comes to the casino gambling and pretty conservative when it comes to everything else. In addition to the offshore online sports betting, some of the states bordering Missouri were extremely quick to license and regulate sports betting, perhaps most notably Illinois, bordering the eastern side of the state.
