Days before the question of legalizing sports betting goes to voters in Missouri, several major pro sports teams donated substantial amounts to the state’s pro-sports betting campaign.
The St. Louis Blues, the Kansas City Royals, the St. Louis Cardinals, Major League Soccer’s St. Louis City SC and the National Women’s Soccer League’s Kansas City Current each donated $333,333.33 to the Winning for Missouri Education campaign, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records show.
While several of those teams have publicly voiced support for bringing sports wagering to Missouri, none of them had officially pledged money to the cause in this way until now.
“Since the first day of this campaign, the effort to legalize sports betting to fund education has been led by Missouri’s six professional sports teams and some of the best sports fans in the world. Their support has been essential,” said the campaign’s spokesman Jack Cardetti in a statement that was quoted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Cardetti suggested that the Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, would also donate to the campaign, although no evidence of that was shown by the Ethics Commission’s documents as of the time of writing.
However, the campaign has enlisted NFL Hall of Famer and Chiefs legend Tony Gonzalez as an ambassador.
Gonzalez “is strongly endorsing Amendment 2 because he ‘loves the constitutional guarantee that protects every dollar for education,’” read a tweet from the campaign posted on Sunday, Nov. 3.
Gonzalez isn’t the only Missouri sports betting legend on board. The Missouri Sports Betting Alliance, the group supporting a “yes” vote in the state’s sports betting referendum, shared a video advert two weeks ago starring former Cardinal Ozzie Smith.
After a judge ruled in September that a legal challenge did not have grounds, Amendment 2 will go before voters in the Show-Me State in the Nov. 5 general election ballot. If it succeeds, online sports betting will become legal statewide.
Despite weight behind pro-betting campaign, result seems in balance
In all, the Winning for Missouri Education campaign has now received around $45 million from donors. The vast majority of that has come from the Sports Betting Alliance’s two biggest members, industry leaders DraftKings and FanDuel, who have put up around $40 million.
Legalizing sports betting has also been supported by all three gubernatorial candidates in the state, as well as the mayors of both Kansas City and St. Louis.
In terms of campaign contributions, the Winning for Missouri Education campaign dwarfs the approximately $14 million dedicated towards the opposition. Caesars has contributed a lot of that amount via several of its in-state casinos, the only sports betting operator to pledge towards the anti-betting push.
Last month, it was reported that the Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment campaign had canceled $1.2 million in television adverts, many of which had been pre-purchased well in advance. The ads were pulled to enable the campaign to focus on “grassroots outreach and community conversations” in the pre-election home stretch, said a spokesperson.
If Show-Me State voters elect in favor of sports betting, each in-state sports team and casino would be eligible to partner with up to one online sports betting operator, while two licenses would be reserved for online-only sportsbooks.
However, it seems that despite the mismatch in campaign spending, the issue hangs in the balance. A poll from the University of St. Louis suggested that slightly more than 50% of voters supported legalizing sports betting, with only 30% willing to declare themselves opposed. The anti-betting campaign spokesperson said two weeks ago that things were “margin of error-type close.”
