The official launch of Missouri sports betting is just a month away. So we wondered what we can glean from the Show-Me State’s neighbors when projecting Missouri’s wagering handle in December, the market’s first month.
The team at BetMissouri.com added up all handles for December 2024 from the neighboring states to see how much Missouri might rake in for its debut.
These numbers average out to $493,587,432 per state. At a projected 10% hold rate (just a bit above the national average) the revenue would be $49,358,744 and taxes (10% of revenue) would be $4,935,875. Nebraska is not included in the list above. That state has in-person wagering only, not mobile, and does not report handle.
While no two sports betting states are alike, we can use the numbers pumped out by the six of the seven states that border Missouri to get an idea of how much wagering action could happen in December when Missouri sportsbook apps are underway.
By adding up the totals from last December in surrounding states big and small – from Illinois and its giant $1,491,297,742 December 2024 handle, down to Arkansas at $52,952,226 – we came up with a total handle from those six states of $2,961,524,589 in the final month of last year.
If Missouri sports betting hits the average of $493,587,432, it will put the Show-Me State in line with other sports betting markets such as Indiana ($563,524,406 in December 2024 handle) and Tennessee ($569,849,216) and well ahead of other, established markets such as Louisiana ($390,727,667) and Connecticut ($243,670,782).
Of the 12 states that BetMissouri.com surveyed, Missouri’s December projected sports betting handle of nearly $500 million would rank third overall for a state’s debut month, behind Ohio’s total from January 2023 ($1,090,962,383) and North Carolina’s $657,246,516 handle in March 2024.
We gathered data from states that are in Missouri’s range as far as population. It’s not reasonable, for instance, to compare Missouri (population of about 6.28 million in 2025, according to data from worldpopulationreview.com) with New York, which has a shade under 20 million people.
Overall, Missouri’s projected handle ranks ahead of a similar state, Arizona, which took in $291,212,868 in wagers for its debut in September 2021. The original wagering hotbed of Nevada had $286,282,315 in handle for June 2018, right around the time that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act), thus allowing all states to decide whether to have sports betting.
We’ll have to wait until Dec. 1 to know for sure how Missouri sports betting will fare, we can read the tea leaves from other locations to get a sense of how the opening month of wagering might go in the Show-Me State:
As the reality of legal wagering on sports draws closer, we at BetMissouri.com offer the best Missouri sportsbook promo codes for folks signing up with operators statewide.
Author
Christopher Boan is a lead writer for BetMissouri.com, specializing in covering state issues. He has covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
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