Missouri’s New Bill to Introduce Betting on River Casinos

• Missouri’s Senator Denny Hoskins introduces a new Senate Bill to legalize sports betting
• As per the bill, licenses would be issued at $10,000
• Renewal fees are at $5,000
• Taxation is pinned at 12%

Missouri is working hard to get its own sports betting legislation up to speed. With a freshly introduced bill by Senator Denny Hoskins, the goal of introducing a ground-breaking framework is not too far from a reality.

Missouri Works on Spots Betting with SB 44

Missouri is yet another state that could potentially get its sports betting industry up to speed very quickly. Now that Senator Denny Hoskins has introduced SB 44, chances are that the legislation will clear all legal hurdles ahead of it.

The Bill proposes to bring sports betting to licensed holiday boats, drawing the idea from the famous river casinos all over the United States that are exempt from some of the toughest legal hurdles that face sports betting. The bill has quite the favorable conditions, too:

• Initial licensing at $10,000
• Renewal fee of $5,000 paid yearly
• 12% in taxes along with a 2.5% administrative fee

Insofar as taxation goes, Missouri’s rates are fair but a little bit steeper than the most common rate of 10%. Overseas, the tax hits 21% in places such as the United Kingdom, but the country has a well-developed online betting industry.

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In other words, it’s understandable why states that are only looking to start their operations normally settle on a rather low tax rate. The license fees are all rather on the low-end, too, although it must be noted that they apply only for river boats whereas places like Pennsylvania issued $10 million license packages, but they had land-based properties in mind.

Divvying Up the Funds

The Gaming Commission Fund will receive the 2.5% tax on betting receipts and 80% of that would automatically be allocated to the Veterans’ Commission Capital Improvement Trust Fund.

The Bill also expects from newly set-up operators to volunteer 0.5% of their gross amount wagered to support various facilities around the state that have to do with sports.

The voluntary tax would be required at least once a quarter with the Entertainment Facilities Infrastructure Fund taking control over the managing of these funds.

Overseeing the Industry as Intended

The Missouri Gaming Commission will be tasked with establishing control over the entire industry, both in regulating whether agencies are complaint with the provisions of the bill and ensuring that customers are safe.

Under SB 44, every citizen of Missouri would be able to opt for self-exclusion, which would allow for a state-wide protection.
Meanwhile, any operator that wants to run its gambling-related activities will have to comply with a number of criteria, including overseeing proper background checks on customers, doing due diligence and wealth assessment analysis to confirm source of wealth as well as the identity & age of customers.

Missouri currently has a list of bills that are on the wait list, including:

• HB119
• SB327
• SB222
• SB195

Things are finally looking up for Missouri and while the exact time frame is unknown, the state should be getting its own sports betting bill very soon.