In the second full month of the new fiscal year, casinos in Missouri continued to set a record pace for revenue.
The 13 commercial casinos in the Show-Me State combined for $160,989,753 in revenue for August, a 5.5% increase compared to one year earlier. The casinos took in a total of $152.6 million in August 2021.
The August figure was a 5.0% decline from the July Missouri revenue of $169.4 million.
Missouri Casino August Revenue Analysis
The state’s casinos are divided into three geographic regions, according to the Missouri Gaming Commission’s monthly figures: The St. Louis market to the east, the Kansas City market to the west and the “out-state” facilities, or those outside of those two major cities.
The St. Louis market again led the state, accounting for almost exactly half of the revenue. The four St. Louis casinos combined for $80.6 million in revenue, led by Ameristar St. Charles at $26.62 million.
One other gaming facility in the “Gateway to the West” cleared $20 million for August – that was River City Casino, which was second in the market and second in the state at $20.72 million.
Kansas City casinos combined for about $57.24 million in August revenue, led by Ameristar Kansas City at $16.44 million.
The Isle of Capri Casino in Boonville, on the Missouri River in the middle of the state, led out-state casinos for August with $7.57 million in August revenue.
The gaming proceeds to education for the month added up to $30,427,063.
Missouri casinos broke a fiscal year record for revenue in 2021-22 (from July 2021 to June 2022) with $1.9 billion. And because both July 2022 and August 2022 had figures exceeded their respective months from 2021, the state is ahead of that record pace, perhaps aiming for $2 billion for the first time.
Wait for Missouri Sports Betting Continues
Those physical casinos continue to be the top option for gaming in the state because sports wagering in Missouri is not in the cards, at least not for a while.
This has to be especially frustrating for sports betting advocates in the state because neighboring Kansas just launched its retail and online sports betting market.
Plenty of Missouri folks tried to jump in on the action, but a little thing called geolocation stood in their way. Geolocation fencing technology is designed to only allow people physically located in a particular state to place wagers in that state. In other words, for instance, people in Kansas City, Missouri, cannot place Kansas sports betting wagers unless they cross the border into Kansas.
According to sports betting technology company GeoComply, nearly 80,000 attempts were made – by 12,000 unique customers – to place wagers in Missouri.
Also according to GeoComply, both Kansas City, Kansas and suburban Overland Park registered more than 200,000 geolocation checks each during the opening weekend of Kansas sports wagering. That was more than any other location in the state.
Missouri residents can now drive to Kansas just like they had already been able to travel to other border states – including Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee and Arkansas – to place sports wagers. But after a Missouri sports betting bill stalled this year in the legislature, those folks just won’t be able to do so within the Show-Me State.
