Are real-money online casinos legal in the Show-Me State, and what can you actually play online right now?
Amendment 2 cleared in November 2024 with 50.05 percent of the vote, the slimmest gambling-vote margin in Missouri history. The Yes campaign cost about $43 million and was led by DraftKings and FanDuel, each writing roughly $15.8 million checks through Winning for Missouri Education. The St. Louis Cardinals, Royals, Chiefs, Blues, and the two MLS sides signed on. The No campaign cost about $14 million and was funded entirely by Caesars Entertainment, which operates three of the state's 13 riverboat casinos. Caesars pulled its closing-week TV ads on October 30 after internal polling moved against it.
For Amendment 2 • ~$43M
DraftKings ($15.8M), FanDuel ($15.8M), St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Blues, Sporting KC, St. Louis City SC.
Record-breaking spend on any Missouri ballot measure. Pitched as a public-education funder. The fiscal note showed receipts could land anywhere from $0 to $28.9 million in a normal year, depending on how operators used the promotional-deduction allowance baked into the amendment.
Against Amendment 2 • ~$14M
Caesars Entertainment, 100% of contributions. Caesars operates Harrah’s Kansas City, Horseshoe St. Louis, and Isle of Capri Boonville, three of Missouri’s 13 riverboat licenses, and employs roughly 2,000 people in the state.
Pulled its closing-week TV ads on October 30, 2024 after internal polling moved against it. Argued the amendment’s education claims overstated what the state would actually collect after promo deductions and that the constitutional language locked in a low rate.
The campaign math matters past Election Day. Because the Yes side won by writing the law into the constitution, every structural concession the No side warned about (the 10 percent rate, the 25 percent promotional-deduction allowance, the carry-forward of negative-revenue months) is locked in unless voters change it again. HB 3533 in the 2026 session tried to raise the rate to 24 percent and was killed in committee on exactly that argument: the constitutional floor cannot be moved by statute.
Missouri voters pass Proposition A by 62%, opening the door to casino gambling on vessels on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and creating the Missouri Gaming Commission.
Voters approve Amendment 2 by 50.07% to 49.93%, adding sports wagering to the Missouri Constitution and setting a December 1, 2025 launch deadline.
Eight mobile sportsbooks launch on day one: DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, bet365, Fanatics, Circa Sports, and theScore Bet. Online casino games remain prohibited.
The Missouri House narrowly passes a bill to license gray-market slot machines through the state lottery. No online casino bill advances.
November 5, 2024 put two gambling questions in front of the same Missouri ballot. Amendment 2 added online and retail sports wagering to the constitution. Amendment 5 would have raised the riverboat-license cap from 13 to 14 and authorized a casino, hotel, and convention center at the Lake of the Ozarks. The first one passed by a tenth of a point. The second lost by nearly five. Read together, the signal was specific: voters wanted the mobile sportsbooks their phones already carried in 38 other states, and did not want a new commercial casino.
PASSED
Sports betting
Adds online and retail sports wagering to the Missouri Constitution and sets a Dec 1, 2025 launch deadline. Caps the state tax at 10% of adjusted gross revenue and allows operators to deduct promotional play before the tax applies.
FAILED
14th riverboat license at the Osage River
Would have raised the 13-license riverboat cap by one and authorized Bally’s Corporation and the Eldon-based RIS Inc. to build a Lake of the Ozarks casino, hotel, and convention center on the Osage River. Same voters who opened the door to mobile sportsbooks closed it on a new land-based casino.
Bally's Corporation, which operates Bally's Kansas City, funded most of Amendment 5's $6.5 million Yes campaign alongside the Eldon-based developer RIS Inc. Separately, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma has been pursuing a $60 million Class II casino at the same Lake of the Ozarks area through a federal trust application under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. That route does not require state authorization. As of May 2026 the Department of the Interior decision is still pending, which means the only Lake of the Ozarks casino that could open in the next two years would come through federal trust land, not a 14th state license.
Missouri's first month of legal sports betting moved $543 million in wagers and produced $521,220 in state tax. Combined operator revenue went negative once promotional credits and free-play deductions were applied, and not a dollar reached the Gaming Proceeds for Education Fund the Yes campaign promised. The first $5 million of annual state collections is statutorily routed to the Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund, so even a normal-yield month would have to clear that floor before education saw anything.
| Line item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Total wagered | $543.0M | The first month of legal mobile and retail sports wagering in Missouri. Eight mobile operators went live at 12:01 a.m. on Dec 1, 2025. |
| Winnings paid to bettors | $438M | A normal payout-to-handle ratio for a launch month. Books took roughly $105M in gross winnings on the wagers themselves before any deductions. |
| Promotional credits and free play deducted | $125M+ | Amendment 2 lets operators deduct promotional credits, bonus bets, and the cost of acquiring customers up to 25% of total wagers before the 10% tax applies. The clause is constitutional, so the legislature cannot remove it without going back to the voters. |
| Voided and cancelled wagers | ~$1M | Standard same-month write-off for voided tickets, line-error voids, and cancelled propositions. |
| Reported taxable revenue | −$20.8M | Total deductions reached roughly $564M against $543M in wagers, producing combined negative taxable revenue for the month. Operators carry the loss forward against future months. |
| 10% state tax owed | $521,220 | Comes entirely from a handful of small retail and untethered operators that did not run promotions heavy enough to drop their numbers underwater. The first $5 million of annual state collections is statutorily routed to the Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund. Everything above $5 million lands in the Gaming Proceeds for Education Fund. |
The shape held in the next two months. January handle of $385 million produced $6.7 million in taxable revenue and roughly $670,000 in state tax; February handle of $277 million produced $10.3 million in taxable revenue and about $1 million in tax. HB 3533 in the 2026 session tried to cap the promotional deduction by statute and was killed in committee because the Gaming Association argued the 25 percent allowance is constitutional language and cannot be moved without another ballot vote. The same fiscal note that warned of a $0 to $28.9 million annual range now reads like a forecast.
With no licensed online casinos here, sweepstakes sites are the legal way to play slots and table games. These are placeholders until our database is wired in.
Casinos we play at. We earn a commission when you sign up through these.
Missouri capped the riverboat licenses at 13 in the 1992 statute and has never added one. Six corporate groups divide all 13 today. Penn Entertainment, Caesars Entertainment, and Boyd Gaming hold eight between them across the St. Louis and Kansas City metros. Bally's holds one in Kansas City. Affinity Interactive and Century Casinos run the four smaller properties along the Mississippi and at the state's northern and southern corners. The same six companies now also hold the mobile sports-skin partnerships that went live December 1.
Parent company, properties, and home docks
3 properties
3 properties
2 properties
2 properties
2 properties
1 property
The state takes 21 percent of adjusted gross receipts on every riverboat dollar, with 10 percent of that tax flowing to the home-dock city or county and the remainder to the state Gaming Proceeds for Education Fund. A separate $2 admission fee per excursion splits evenly between the Gaming Commission and the home dock. HB 3533 in the 2026 session proposed raising the admission fee to $5.50 and requiring it every two hours instead of once per visit. That piece of the bill was dropped before floor vote.
Missouri voters legalized sports wagering through Amendment 2 in November 2024, but the constitutional change covers sports betting only. It does not authorize online slots, table games, or live dealer casinos. The Missouri Gaming Commission licenses 13 riverboat casinos and the state's mobile sportsbooks, and no enacted law adds online casino games to its authority.
Amendment 2 passed by 50.07% to 49.93%, the slimmest gambling margin in state history, and a separate constitutional amendment would also be required to authorize online casinos. As of May 2026 the legislature has filed no live iGaming bill. The current gambling debate in Jefferson City centers on video lottery machines in gas stations and fraternal halls, not on real-money online casino sites.
Missouri spent the 2026 session arguing about an estimated 14,000 to 20,000 unregulated "no-chance" slot machines already running in gas stations, truck stops, and fraternal halls under a loophole the legislature has never closed. A federal judge ruled the machines illegal gambling devices on February 16. Two days later the House passed HB 3265 by 83 to 66, one vote above the chamber minimum, replacing the gray market with a state-run Video Lottery system at a 31 percent tax rate. The Senate Select Committee on Gaming voted unanimously to kill it in May, and backers are now pointing to a 2027 or 2028 ballot run.
A federal judge holds that the so-called "no-chance" terminals operating in Missouri convenience stores, truck stops, and fraternal halls are illegal gambling devices under state and federal law. The ruling lands two days before the House floor vote and is cited in both directions during debate.
The House approves the bill 83-66, one vote above the 82-vote minimum needed to clear the chamber. The bill creates a state-run Video Lottery system, caps wagers at $4 per game, limits each retailer to eight terminals, and routes 31% of adjusted gross revenue to the lottery commission, with the remainder split between K-12 and public higher-education funding.
The Missouri Gaming Association, representing the 13 commercial riverboats, argues the bill violates the state constitution because every Missouri gaming expansion since 1992 has required a voter-approved amendment. Cordish-style litigation and ballot-only authorization arguments dominate the Senate hearing record.
The Senate Select Committee on Gaming votes unanimously to reject the House-passed measure, ending the proposal for the legislative session. Backers signal a 2027 or 2028 ballot initiative rather than another legislative run, the same route Amendments 2 and 5 took in 2024.
The constitutional argument is decisive in Jefferson City. Proposition A in 1992 added riverboat gambling by voter amendment. Proposition A in 2008 removed the $500 loss limit and raised the riverboat tax to 21 percent by voter amendment. Amendment 2 in 2024 added sports betting by voter amendment. The Missouri Gaming Association argued HB 3265 was a new statewide gaming expansion authorized by ordinary statute, and the Senate accepted that argument. The result: the gray-market machines stay in legal limbo while the constitutional path runs through 2027 or 2028.
The legal options available to Missouri residents right now.
Legalized by Amendment 2 and live since December 1, 2025. Eight mobile sportsbooks operate statewide under Missouri Gaming Commission licenses, and the minimum age is 21. Missouri took in $543 million in handle in the first month alone.
Thirteen MGC-licensed riverboat casinos run on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, including Ameristar St. Charles, Harrah's Kansas City, River City, and Horseshoe St. Louis. Slots, table games, poker rooms, and retail sportsbooks, 21+.
Retail-only. Licensed retailers across the state sell draw games and scratchers, and the official app scans paper tickets but does not sell them. The minimum age is 18, and no iLottery bill is moving.
No Missouri statute bans the sweepstakes model. Free-to-play social slots and sweepstakes sites that award redeemable prizes are accessible to residents, the closest legal substitute for online casino games. A Jackson County class action against Stake.us was filed in October 2025 and has not been ruled on.
Ohio, Kansas, and Missouri all opened with a 10 percent sports-betting tax. Ohio's first-month launch produced roughly $11 million in state tax. Kansas's first-month launch on a $160 million handle still produced about $1.3 million. Missouri's launch produced $521,220 on a $543 million handle. Same statutory rate, dramatically different yield. The variable is the promotional-deduction policy and whether the cap is constitutional. New York and Massachusetts show the other extreme: tighter caps and higher rates produced first-month checks 25 to 150 times larger than Missouri's.
| State | Handle | State tax | Mechanic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missouri10% | $543M | $521K | Dec 1, 2025 launch. Promo-deduction allowance written into the constitution at up to 25% of handle. Same-month carry-forward of negative taxable revenue. Smallest first-month tax-to-handle ratio in this group. |
| Ohio10% | $1.1B | ~$11M | Jan 1, 2023 launch. Promotional deductions allowed but capped and statutory rather than constitutional. State doubled the rate to 20% six months later. |
| Kansas10% | $160M | ~$1.3M | Sep 1, 2022 launch. Generous promo deductions during launch period; effective rate has stayed under 4% of GGR for most months since. |
| Massachusetts20% online | $985M | ~$13M | Mobile launch Mar 10, 2023. Promotional deductions capped tightly. Two months of operation pulled in more tax than Missouri’s December launch despite a lower opening handle. |
| New York51% | $1.8B | ~$80M | Mobile launch Jan 8, 2022. No general promotional deduction. Highest rate in the country produced the largest first-month tax check of any U.S. launch to date. |
The structural takeaway sits in the comparison column. Ohio doubled its rate from 10 to 20 percent six months after launch without any new vote because the rate sits in ordinary statute. Missouri cannot do the same. Both the rate and the promotional-deduction allowance are constitutional, which means any rate increase or deduction cap has to go back through a statewide ballot. The legislature's attempt to do this in 2026 (HB 3533) died on that exact point. Until the next constitutional amendment, Missouri's sports-betting tax is the softest in the country relative to handle.
No. Missouri has not legalized real-money online casino games, and the Missouri Gaming Commission licenses no operator to offer them. Any site advertising "MO online casino real money" is offshore and unregulated.
Yes. Online sports betting has been legal since December 1, 2025 under Amendment 2. Eight mobile sportsbooks operate under MGC licenses, and the minimum age is 21.
No Missouri statute bans sweepstakes or social casinos, and they are generally accessible to residents. They are not state-licensed casino gambling. A class action against Stake.us was filed in Jackson County in October 2025 but has not been ruled on.
You must be at least 21 to play at a riverboat casino or wager on sports, and 18 to play the Missouri Lottery or charitable bingo.
It would take another constitutional amendment, since gaming expansions in Missouri have required voter approval since 1994. No iGaming bill has cleared the legislature as of May 2026. We update this page when the legal status changes.
