A lot can happen in a year. And this past year, a lot happened in the legal sports betting and iGaming market - and then some.

A referendum in Missouri, high-profile wagering scandals, and crackdowns on an overseas sportsbook and college player prop betting are simply a few of the huge stories of 2024. But there was much more.

So, to refresh our readers' memories (in addition to our own), Covers chosen once again to round up the leading stories of the year. The slow news days were couple of and far in between, as you'll soon see.

Missouri (barely) authorizes mobile sports betting

Any state authorizing legal sports betting is a big offer. How Missouri did it - and what follows - makes it one of the year's most essential stories.

Missouri approved retail and mobile sportsbooks by roughly 3,000 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. This was not just the closest margin of any gaming-related step this election cycle but the closest in any state since the Supreme Court overruled the federal wagering restriction in 2018.

After evaluating the last main outcomes of every Missouri county with more than 10,000 votes this election, I can state - officially - that the sports betting ballot step has maintained enough support from Election Day tallies to pass