Is Bovada legal in Missouri? What state law says (2026)

ByCrown Wagers Editorial Team Updated Bovada Help

No. Missouri has had legal online sports betting since December 1, 2025, but only through sportsbooks licensed by the Missouri Gaming Commission, and Bovada isn’t one of them. Bovada still accepts players in Missouri, and a site letting you open an account doesn’t make your bets legal.

How Missouri legalized sports betting

Missouri voters approved Amendment 2 on November 5, 2024, by 1,478,652 votes to 1,475,691. That’s 50.05% in favor, a margin of 2,961 votes.

The amendment added Article III, section 39(g) to the Missouri Constitution and put the Missouri Gaming Commission, which already licensed the state’s casinos and fantasy sports operators, in charge of sports betting. You have to be 21 or older and physically in Missouri to place a bet.

Betting started on December 1, 2025, online and at casino sportsbooks. The Commission’s July 2026 revenue report lists eight online sportsbooks: bet365, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, Circa Sports, DraftKings, Fanatics, FanDuel and theScore Bet.

In the first seven months, through June 2026, bettors in Missouri wagered about $2.3 billion, nearly all of it online. Sportsbooks pay a 10% tax, but the amendment lets them deduct promotional credits, such as free bets, from the revenue that’s taxed. In December 2025, $543 million in bets produced about $521,000 in state tax, and the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, sent $3.2 million to education.

Bovada and Missouri

Missouri isn’t on Bovada’s list of restricted states, so Bovada takes sign-ups and bets from people there. It has no Missouri license. Our page on where Bovada is available lists the states it blocks.

Bovada’s website says it’s licensed by the Union of the Comoros and the “Central Reserve Authority of Western Sahara.” State regulators name its operator as Harp Media B.V., a company in Curaçao, and no US state licenses it. Our page on where Bovada is located has more.

Bovada blocks 19 states and Washington, DC, and most of them were added after a state regulator or attorney general sent Bovada a cease-and-desist letter. We found no such letter from Missouri. Missouri’s attorney general did join the 50 attorneys general who asked the US Justice Department in August 2025 to block offshore gambling sites and seize their assets.

What Missouri law says about betting with Bovada

Section 39(g) says “any entity licensed by the Commission” may offer sports wagering, “notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary.” Betting outside that system is still covered by chapter 572 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, the state’s general gambling law.

Section 572.010 says a person gambles when he or she “stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under his or her control or influence.” The definition excludes “any licensed activity,” which covers a bet with a Missouri-licensed sportsbook. A bet with Bovada gets no such exclusion, and section 572.020 makes gambling itself an offense, so it applies to the person placing the bet.

ConductLawGrade and maximum penalty
Gambling, such as placing a betSection 572.020Class C misdemeanor: up to 15 days in jail and a $750 fine
Gambling by a “professional player,” someone who gambles for a livingSection 572.020Class A misdemeanor: up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine
Bookmaking: accepting more than one bet and more than $100 in bets in a daySection 572.030Class E felony: up to 4 years in prison and a $10,000 fine
Revised Statutes of Missouri sections 572.010 to 572.030, 558.002 and 558.011, as of September 2026.

Missouri’s publicized enforcement since sports betting launched has been aimed at companies, such as the attorney general’s September 2026 orders to prediction markets. The penalties in the table are the most the statutes allow. This isn’t legal advice.

Why a licensed sportsbook is the safer choice

Licensed sportsbooks have to follow the rules in section 39(g), and the Gaming Commission enforces them. They must use geolocation to confirm you’re in Missouri and check that you’re 21 or older. They must also let you exclude yourself through a process the Commission sets up, and let you set daily, weekly or monthly limits on your time, deposits or bets.

If you have a problem with a licensed book, such as a stalled withdrawal or a disputed bet, you can file a complaint with the Commission, which can penalize a sportsbook or suspend or revoke its license. No Missouri agency oversees Bovada, so your only escalation there is Bovada’s own dispute process.

What else is legal in Missouri

  • The Missouri Lottery, for players 18 and older. Tickets aren’t sold online.
  • Thirteen licensed casinos, for players 21 and older. Eight of them have retail sportsbooks.
  • Fantasy sports contests from operators the Gaming Commission licenses, including pick’em apps that follow its rules.

Fantasy and pick’em apps

Missouri has licensed fantasy sports operators since 2016. Its law bars contests where a win is based on a team’s score or point spread, or solely on one athlete’s performance in a single event. Licensed operators include DraftKings, FanDuel, PrizePicks, Underdog, Sleeper and Yahoo.

In March 2024, the Commission’s general counsel told operators that Missouri contests must be “peer to peer and not subject to the operator being the winning participant,” which ruled out pick’em games against the house. PrizePicks, which said in August 2025 that it was ending house-banked pick’em nationwide, lists Missouri as open to players 18 and older.

Prediction markets

Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket are regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and sell contracts on game results. Kalshi accepts users 18 and older. On September 17, 2026, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway ordered six of these companies (Polymarket, Kalshi, Crypto.com, Novig, Underdog and Robinhood) to stop offering sports contracts to Missourians until they’re licensed by the Gaming Commission. “Companies cannot repackage sports bets as ‘event contracts’ to avoid Missouri law,” she said.

The companies say federal regulation puts them outside state gambling laws, and federal appeals courts have split on that question. As of September 29, 2026, we couldn’t confirm whether any of the six had stopped serving Missouri.

Taxes on winnings

Gambling winnings are taxable whether they come from a licensed sportsbook or from Bovada. The IRS says you must report all of them, including winnings that don’t come with a Form W-2G, and you can deduct losses only if you itemize, up to the amount of your winnings.

Missouri’s income tax starts from your federal adjusted gross income, which the Missouri Department of Revenue says includes gambling income. Bovada says it doesn’t report winnings to tax authorities, so keep your own records.

The risks of using Bovada from Missouri

  • Section 572.020 makes gambling a misdemeanor, and a bet with a sportsbook Missouri hasn’t licensed doesn’t fall under the law’s exception for licensed activity.
  • Bovada’s terms let it close accounts “for any reason, at any time in our sole discretion,” and it zeroes out balances after 18 months without activity. If Bovada ever blocks Missouri, its instructions for players in blocked states are to contact customer service about options such as a crypto withdrawal.
  • If you travel to a state Bovada blocks, don’t try to hide your location. Its terms treat VPN or proxy use as fraud, which can mean a closed account and a forfeited balance. See our VPN guide.

Our Bovada review covers its fees, bonuses and payout rules, and our state-by-state betting lookup shows where sports betting is legal.

Only bet what you’ve set aside to lose. If gambling has stopped being fun, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) for free, confidential help, 24/7, or chat online with the National Problem Gambling Helpline.

Sources

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