Missouri’s Responsible Sports Betting Framework

Missouri’s launch of legalized sports betting is just days away, but Show-Me State regulators have been working for months on how to ensure customers can wager responsibly.

Key Takeaways

  • Missouri is launching sports betting with regulations requiring age verification, self-exclusion options, limit-setting tools, and prominent responsible gambling information.
  • Online operators must provide features like time, deposit, and wager limits, temporary account suspensions, and links to state self-exclusion resources.
  • Tax revenue from sportsbooks will help fund the Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund, which will support counseling, treatment programs, and grants for organizations aiding problem gamblers.

Ballot Measure and Regulatory Mandate

The ballot measure approved by Missouri voters last November, which paved the way for the state's sports betting launch on Dec. 1, required the Missouri Gaming Commission to adopt a regulatory framework with responsible gambling features.

Those standards for implementing responsible gambling programs were to include using commercially reasonable efforts to verify that a person placing a bet on a sporting event is of the legal minimum age, which will be 21.

The standards also included displaying a hyperlink on an online sports wagering platform to responsible gaming information, allowing individuals to voluntarily exclude themselves from placing bets with the operator through a process established by the commission, and allowing persons to place limits on their time, deposit, or bet limits in a daily, weekly, or monthly manner.

Another set of standards required of Missouri sports betting was for the detection and prevention of compulsive gaming including, but not limited to, requirements to prominently display information regarding compulsive gaming on all online sports wagering platforms and promotions.

In the year that followed last November’s referendum, the Missouri Gaming Commission has worked on enacting a regulatory framework that includes these things.

Player Limits and Self-Exclusion Tools

Missouri's sports wagering regulations include a requirement to allow bettors to put daily, weekly, or monthly limits on how much time they spend on a platform, how much they deposit, and how much they wager. A bettor can also request to change or remove their limits. However, if they want those limits weakened or gone, they will have to wait until after their initial, more restrictive limit ends.

Online sportsbooks will also allow users to temporarily suspend their accounts for 72 hours to a year. Bettors cannot be stopped from withdrawing funds while they are subject to any self-imposed limits or suspensions, and operators can't send direct digital marketing materials or promos to those players, such as via emails or push notification from a mobile app.

Another regulation sets out that mobile Missouri sports betting apps must include a link on their platform to a page containing responsible gambling information, which will include directions to the commission's application to ban yourself from gambling. Sportsbook operators are expected to set up and maintain their own self-exclusion programs as well.

Operators will have their own responsible gambling programs on offer, too. DraftKings, for example, has highlighted its “My Stat Sheet” tool, which allows users to track their gambling, and “My Budget Builder,” which will help customers to set limits and reminders for themselves through a guided, easy-to-use experience.

More Money, Hopefully Fewer Problems

The Missouri Gaming Commission says bettors who are concerned about their own or someone else’s wagering can call 1-800-GAMBLER for assistance.

Last November’s ballot measure also created a designated fund to house money for problem gambling help, the Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund.

The fund is to be used by the gaming commission to help provide counseling and other support services for problem gamblers, develop problem gambling treatment and prevention programs, and provide grants to organizations that help compulsive gamblers.

Money for the fund and the programs it will pay for are to come from the state’s 10% tax rate for sportsbook revenue, with the greater of 10% of such annual tax revenues or $5,000,000 to the Compulsive Gaming Fund.