By Philip Schieffelin
On Sept. 1, sports betting was soft launched in the state of Kansas. Just a week later, on Sept. 8 it was fully launched with Kansas’s four state casinos partnering with online sportsbooks and six sportsbook mobile device applications available to those who wanted to place a wager. Kansas law does require that anyone betting in a casino or online be at least 21 years of age. The four casinos that provide sports betting wagers are located in Dodge City, Kansas City, Mulvane, and Pittsburg. The state’s Native American casinos are sure to follow suit. If using a mobile app to place a wager you can be anywhere within the state; the sportsbooks uses GPS to make sure all wagers are placed from inside the state borders. Many Missourians have taken advantage of this and crossed the border just to make a bet.
Kansas joined 21 other states that allow online sports betting plus five others that only allow in-person betting. All of these states made sports betting legal after May 14, 2018 when the Supreme Court decided that the federal government did not have the authority to prohibit sports betting in the states. This put the matter into state government hands where legalization has happened very quickly. States that have legalized sports betting have seen an increase in revenue, through taxation and tourism, which Kansas Governor Laura Kelly stated as one reason she signed the new bill into law. The law that legalized sports betting does require every casino and sportsbook to have wager limits set in place and forbids lines of credit from being extended. This is meant to protect those who have gambling problems and keep others from falling into the same addiction. Another fear that some have expressed is the effect on sports that legalization brings. An extreme of this being the notorious World Series of 1919 when multiple players from the Chicago White Sox were paid off to throw the deciding game.
