The fate of mobile sports betting is sealed in Mississippi, at least for this year, as a conference committee was unable to reach a suitable compromise between the House and Senate.
Better Luck Next Year
There will be no mobile sports betting in the Magnolia State this year as the legislature was unable to reach a compromise. The House had passed what would have been a comprehensive gaming package that included online sports betting but the Senate essentially gutted the bill in what is called a strike-all amendment that eliminates all the language from the legislation but leaves the bones of the bill intact for further discussion.
At that point, conference committees were formed to try to resolve the many differences between the upper and lower chambers. But time was of the essence and the sides were too far apart to reach anything resembling a compromise. The legislative session ended May 5th and it proved too tall a task for the committee members to hurdle.
The proposal to bring digital sports betting to Mississippi was sponsored by Representative Casey Eure, co-chair of a mobile sports betting task force last year, who said in February, “Mississippi is No. 1 for illegal online sports betting in the country.”
Keeping the money in Mississippi as opposed to it going to offshore sportsbooks or neighboring states that have legalized mobile sports betting was one of the reasons why Eure and many of his colleagues in the House wanted a mobile sports betting bill to pass. There was also the projected $25 million per annum that would have swelled the state’s tax coffers.
Senate Gaming Committee Chairman and negotiator David Blount, said, “We had more serious discussions than we’ve had in the past this year. There are still disagreements among the different casino operators about the bill’s effect on brick-and-mortar casinos and jobs. We believe it needs further study.”
Silver Lining
It appears there will be interest in resurrecting another sports betting bill next year but much of the issue revolves around the impact it would have on the state’s 26 land-based casinos.
“The thing that is different about Mississippi is we have an established casino industry that employs tens of thousands of people,” Blount said. “The bill that passed the House would have allowed for I-gaming, which is to say not just sports betting, but also gambling on your phone, poker, slot machines on the casino property. I think that’s a mistake, and I don’t agree with that. I think if we narrow the scope to sports betting, and we deal with some consumer protections, provisions that were not addressed in the bill, that we can work on a bill again next year.”
Online casino gambling, also known as iGaming, is the third rail in all of this and it is likely the primary reason why the state’s casinos were averse to House Bill 774. But it should also be noted that many of the state’s casinos also house sportsbooks which could also be adversely impacted by mobile sports betting.
Yet, the House bill included the state’s casinos partnering with national platform providers like Caesars, DraftKings, or FanDuel to get a piece of the digital action. A compromise on a few of these key issues, given enough time, could very well pave the way for mobile sports betting in Mississippi next year.
