Missouri: Record spending fuels campaigns to legalize sports gambling, new casino

It’s time to bet the over-under on how much will be spent this year on gambling ballot measures in Missouri.

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A good mark might be $60 million. Online bookies poured $32 million so far into the Amendment 2 campaign to legalize sports betting, and a casino company grumpy about the deal countered with $14 million to defeat it.

The campaign for Amendment 5, to authorize a new casino at the Lake of the Ozarks, adds $9.4 million — bringing the total to more than $55 million.

Winning for Missouri Education, the Amendment 2 campaign funded by DraftKings and FanDuel, has already set a record for the most money donated to a ballot measure campaign. The previous record was $31 million raised by supporters of a 2006 proposal to protect stem cell research.