A lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to block a proposed constitutional amendment legalizing sports wagering in Missouri from being placed on the November ballot.
The suit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court, argues the methodology used by the Missouri Secretary of State’s office to certify that the sports betting proposal collected enough signatures was unconstitutional.
To make the ballot, proposed initiative petitions must receive signatures from 8% of legal voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts.
Lawmakers redrew those districts following the 2020 U.S. Census, but the secretary of state’s office did not use the new districts when it calculated whether enough valid signatures were collected, the lawsuit said. But it used the current district lines to determine where people who signed the petition lived.
Had the count been based on current district lines, the lawsuit contends, the proposal would have fallen short in the 1st Congressional District.
The secretary of state should have calculated the required number of signatures per district, the lawsuit asserts, by taking the total vote in the 2020 gubernatorial election, multiplied that by 8%, and divided that total by eight.
Under that scenario, the proposal would have fallen short in both the 1st and 5th Districts.
The lawsuit also alleges the secretary of state’s office deemed some signatures as valid that were not legal in the 1st and 5th Districts.
A spokesman for the secretary of state’s office could not be immediately reached for comment.
The sports wagering initiative was launched late last year after major sports teams and casino companies were frustrated again in passing legislation. The public-facing part of the campaign has been taken by the major pro sports teams, but the money — $6.3 million for the signature campaign — has been provided by the two largest online sports wagering platforms, FanDuel and DraftKings.
Bill DeWitt III, president of the St. Louis Cardinals, called Wednesday’s lawsuit “completely without merit as Missourians came out in force to sign the petition that will be on the ballot in November.”
If approved by voters this fall, the money won by the gaming industry would be taxed at 10% of the net after promotions and other costs. In Kansas, which legalized sports wagering in 2022, a similar taxing structure brought in $9.8 million for $172 million wagered during June.
The ballot language anticipates Missouri revenue would be up to $28.9 million annually that would be spent on education programs.
This story was originally published in the Missouri Independent, a States Newsroom.
