By the time the NFL playoffs begin in January, sports betting will be legal in Missouri.

The only remaining question now that voters approved Amendment 2 is whether bettors will use platforms licensed in Missouri or if players will have to use accounts linked to licenses from other states.

The result on sports wagering wasn’t clear until the final votes were reported from Greene County after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. The southwest Missouri county voted 55% against sports betting, narrowing the statewide margin to just over 14,000 votes out of 2.9 million cast. 

The election didn’t go as well for the other gambling measure on the ballot. Voters said “no” to Amendment 5, which would have authorized a new casino near the Lake of the Ozarks. It is only the third time since 1980 that Missouri voters rejected a proposal to expand gambling in the state. 

With nearly all precincts reporting, Amendment 5 was losing 52% to 48%.

Winning for Missouri Education, the committee funded by the two biggest online bookmakers, FanDuel and DraftKings, poured a record of almost $41 million into the campaign. That proved to be just enough to overcome a $14 million opposition campaign funded by Caesars Entertainment, which pulled its television ads three weeks before Election Day.

Initially polling with an advantage of 20 percentage points, the narrow vote on Tuesday shows how effectively an opposition campaign undermined support.

New constitutional amendments become law 30 days after the election, so the first legal bets in Missouri could be placed as early as Dec. 5. 

Backers of Amendment 5, who spent $4.2 million to make the ballot and another $6 million on the fall campaign, were unable to overcome skepticism of the benefits of expanded gambling created by the anti-sports wagering campaign. 

Missouri voters last defeated a gambling measure in 2004 when voters rejected a proposal similar to Amendment 5. That would have authorized a licensed casino for the White River near Rockaway Beach in southwest Missouri. 

Under state law, casinos must be located within 1,000 feet of the main channel of either the Mississippi or Missouri rivers.