ST. LOUIS – Sports betting in Missouri becomes legal on Dec. 1. In the meantime, the Better Business Bureau reports a risky underbelly of pseudo-gambling, illegal gambling and scams has developed. The BBB says the number of Scam Tracker reports and complaints it has received about online gambling has doubled since 2023.

“Despite the raft of these now legal options that are cropping up, there's a lot of confusion around them, and there are a lot of kind of quasi legal or illegal, even gambling operations that people are sometimes willingly and, you know, unwillingly, interacting with because of the rise in popularity,” BBB investigator Brian Edwards said.

According to Edwards, online, grey market, and illegal gambling operations are widespread, and legal protections are few and far between on these sites. He tells us consumers reported confusion and misleading terms.

“They ran into a lot of, a lot of frozen accounts. They were able to deposit money, but what they weren't able to withdraw money quite so easily, and they were having a lot of issues with maybe, like, small kind of, you know, rules violations that they felt were unfair,” Edwards said.

“They had no problem with my deposits, but as soon as I won, then there's an issue with my account,” St. Louisan Chris Poindexter said.

Poindexter says he’s still trying to get to the bottom of an account issue he’s having with DraftKings, a sports betting and online gaming company.

“They never came back with the legitimate reason of why I couldn't withdraw my money. I can log into my account right now; the money is just still sitting there,” he said.

Chris was playing a daily fantasy sports game on Draft Kings, which is currently legal in Missouri. Late last week, the Missouri Gaming Commission granted the company a direct mobile sports betting license that takes effect Dec. 1.

“We’re going on a year with this. Like I said, it started in October of last year,” Poindexter said.

While we work to help resolve Chris’ issue with DraftKings, Edwards encourages folks to read the terms and conditions for the game that they are playing and the account that they are opening.

“They should understand kind of back and front, what they are getting themselves into,” Edwards said. “They should be checking to make sure that the establishment or organization that they are playing through is licensed in their state.”