Missourians spend billions every year in pursuit of instant riches. They buy lottery tickets, play casino games and dab bingo cards. And increasingly in recent years, they play games of questionable legality in convenience stores, truck stops and small gaming parlors.
Everyone involved in the industry thinks people would spend more, if given the chance. None of the players pursuing those new markets wants anyone else sitting in on their game.
Major professional league teams, now banding together behind a sports wagering initiative petition, don’t want to be paired legislatively with promoters of legal video lottery games…
The issue is that video lottery players are small-dollar gamblers, direct competition for slot machines and the small wagers gamblers might make during the course of a sporting event, said Andy Arnold, lobbyist for the Missouri Coalition for Video Lottery.
