Kansas Blocks 100K+ Missouri Log-in Attempts During Sports Betting Debut

Sports betting in the Sunflower state was launched on September 1, 2022, joining dozens of other states, including Louisiana, Ontario, and New York. For clarification purposes, the first day of September marked a soft launch, followed by an official debut a week later, on Thursday, September 8.

Several bettors in the state have been looking forward to the day they would make wagers on local teams. So, after the much-anticipated market unveiling, Kansans like the Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, and popular college teams such as the Kansa State Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks.

However, while the sports wagering market is aimed specifically at Jayhawkers, Missouri sports fans have been trying to get their hands on some action from across the borders. Unfortunately for them, their efforts are constantly being rebounded thanks to robust geofencing technology from sportsbooks in the Sunflower State.

Access Denied to Masses of Sports Bettors in Missouri

When sports betting went live last week on Thursday, all transactions were to occur within Kansas’s jurisdiction. And, of course, bettors were required to have attained the age of 21 and above to access the service.

All mobile bookmakers enlisted GeoComply Solutions Inc in Kansas to assist them control access to their betting apps and websites via geo-fencing technology. This company provides cybersecurity and fraud prevention solutions that help detect location fraud by verifying the true digital identity of customers accessing a specific network or service. Therefore, in Kansas, the technology used by GeoComply can distinguish when bettors use VPN or any other software to falsify their location and blocks them from entering a wagering platform.

So, based on GeoComply’s latest reports, the numbers of Kansas’ first regulated sports betting week were quite impressive, and the number of blocked attempts was more interesting. According to local daily KCTV, GeoComply has conducted around 2.3 million geolocation checks in Kansas following last week’s sports betting debut.

The geo-fencing technology has also blocked about 104,000 people in the Show-Me State from trying to access Kansas’ sports betting market since it went live. This means bettors in Missouri account for around 5% of the users who attempted to access sportsbooks in the Wheat State.

Additionally, data showed that Kansas City suburbs were the go-to for people trying to beat the system, with 60% of the accounts blocked being linked to smartphones in that location. John Pappas, the spokesman for GeoComply Solutions, said in part:

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“A person’s location could be verified multiple times they are using the mobile sportsbooks apps. The closer a person is to the border, the more often that person’s location is verified… We don’t do this because we want to stop people from this form of recreation. We do it because it’s required by federal law and required by state law that individuals have to be located within the state.”

That said, the number of people from Missouri trying to make sports wagers outside Kansas state did not surprise GeoComply’s spokesperson, Pappas. Meanwhile, Danny DiRienzio, the Senior Director of Government Relations at GeoComply, pointed out that about 10% of all usernames that have wagered in Kansas sportsbooks are players crossing state lines from Missouri. He added:

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“Kansas is clearly benefiting from Missourians being avid sports fans and their interest in being able to wager.”

Tons of Sports Wagering Interest in the Sunshine State

With all the seemingly stellar week one figures, Pappas noted that the data does not highlight the number of bets placed. Nonetheless, he gave it a positive twist saying that the impressive data indicates that people are interested in sports betting in Kansas.

Further, GeoComply has reported since the launch of sports betting last week, about 6.7% of Kansas adults have registered with a sportsbook. The percentage of the adult population who opened a sports betting account was impressive, having exceeded Los Angeles and New York and were at par with Louisiana on the weekend its sportsbooks went live. With the NFL season coming up, more signups are expected.

DiRienzio voiced his confidence that the upcoming NFL will boost sports wagering volume, saying:

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“The kickoff of the NFL season is like Christmas for Amazon in the sports betting industry. We expect the volumes to increase significantly – not only in the state of Kansas but certainly by Missourians either attempting to login to Kansas sportsbooks or even crossing the border. We’ve seen a lot of that activity as well,”

Green with Envy?

Most states around Missouri have already launched sports betting, and Kansas is the latest that has touched a nerve. The reaction is mainly because of the location of Kansas City, which sits on lands from both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border line. Therefore, a portion of the city’s population enjoys placing bets while others don’t.

Things got more intense after the Kansas City Chiefs, an NFL team in Missouri, made BetMGM their sports betting partner, allowing people who could bet to do so on the team. This made sports betting become of more interest in Missouri. On Friday last week, Caleb Rowden, Missouri’s Republican State Senator, told Fox4;

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“I generally hate the state of Kansas in every way, shape, and form. To see them do something better than us, I don’t love.”

There is a yearning for sports betting by sports fans from Missouri. But unfortunately, neither retail nor mobile sports betting has been legalized in the state. Many sports wagering bills have been presented to the Missouri General Assembly, but none has received enough support to launch. Therefore, even though Senator Caleb Rowden plans to prioritize sports betting in the coming future, it will be an uphill task.