While sports bettors celebrated Kansas' launch of mobile and retail wagering, those across the border in Missouri could only look on with a twinge of envy. The Show-Me State’s own sports betting bill turned into a no-show due to a variety of disagreements, and when Missouri’s legislative session ended in May, any hopes of a legal sports betting launch in 2022 disappeared along with it.

The good news for sports bettors in Missouri is that they can still wager legally using Kansas betting apps—as long as they cross the state line first. 

The Kansas law specifies that bettors be at least 21 years old and physically within the state’s borders to wager, which makes things relatively easy for many of the roughly 2.2 million people who live in the metro Kansas City area. 

Of that number, around 500,000 live in Kansas City, Missouri. If you live in Kansas City, Missouri, you can legally use Kansas sports betting apps. You can even do much of your preparation from home. Here's how you can sign up for Kansas sports betting if you live in Missouri:

How To Access Kansas Sports Betting From Missouri

Here's how you can sign up for Kansas sports betting if you live in Missouri:

1. Download your favorite sports betting app from home (make sure that app is legal and live in Kansas)
2. Complete your registration and deposit funds (make sure to use a relevant promo code to activate your welcome offer. More information on the best promo codes below)
3. Drive or walk across the state border from Missouri to Kansas
4. Place your bets!

The Kansas sports betting law signed May 12 by Gov. Laura Kelly, which was effective July 1, allows for as many as 12 sports betting apps to operate within the state. Six of those—FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM Kansas, Caesars, Barstool and PointsBet—were allowed to begin accepting legal wagers Thursday, the “soft launch” of legal sports betting in Kansas. More are likely to follow on the formal launch day, set for Sept. 8.

Even though sports betting remains illegal in Missouri, residents of the Show-Me State can still download Kansas sports betting apps onto their mobile devices, register for accounts, deposit funds, and peruse all the odds and Kansas promo codes that are available to bettors in the Sunflower State. 

To actually place wagers, though, bettors will have to be physically in Kansas since betting apps use geolocation software to verify a user’s location.

For those who live in the metro Kansas City area, which spans parts of both Kansas and Missouri, getting in position to bet can mean an easy drive—or a walk, given how the state line in some areas runs right through the middle of neighborhoods. It promises to be a similar situation to what we witnessed before New York launched mobile sports betting, and residents often drove across the bridge into New Jersey to place bets on their phones.

Kansas Sports Betting Promo Codes

Here's the latest available promo codes for Kansas sports betting. Don't forget to sign up and secure your welcome offers before you begin betting. You can get all of these Kansas sports betting offers, you don't have to select only one.

BetMGM Kansas

Get a $1,000 risk-free bet by signing up to BetMGM Kansas using the bonus code BOOKIES.

DraftKings Kansas

Bet $5 on the NFL or college football & Get $200 In Free Bets Instantly at DraftKings Kansas (must be moneyline bet). No promo code necessary.

FanDuel Kansas

Bet $5 on the NFL and win $150 In Free Bets at FanDuel Kansas. No promo code necessary.

Caesars Sportsbook Kansas

Your first bet is on Caesars up to $1,250 (if it loses), plus get 1,000 Tier Credits and 1,000 Reward Credits.

Pressure increasing on Missouri

Sports bettors in Missouri also have options other than Kansas. Depending on what part of the Show-Me state they live in, Missouri residents can also cross borders into Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee or Arkansas, which all have statewide mobile sports betting. Being surrounded by five neighboring states with legal sports betting will also increase pressure on Missouri legislators to join the crowd.

For the states that have legalized it, sports betting means millions in tax dollars and licensing fees that go toward education, infrastructure projects, or other needs. States without legal sports betting risk seeing a stream of bettors leave the state—and taking potential tax dollars with them—to wager on big events like the Super Bowl or March Madness. 

That’s certainly the case with Missouri, which is now a notable donut hole of sports betting in the lower Midwest. That pressure only increases as more sports betting apps go live at or shortly after Kansas’ full launch date on Sept. 8. 

Missouri’s attempt to legalize sports betting in 2022 was rife with a rancor that characterized the legislative session in general. The sports betting bill faced pushback from the state’s retail casinos, it was hamstrung by disagreements over the placement of video lottery terminals, and it ultimately never made it to the Senate floor for a vote. Debate in Missouri can’t resume until the 2023 legislative session opens in early January—but in the meantime, they’ll always have Kansas.