The Mississippi House of Representatives is taking an unconventional route to keeping legislation alive that would give those 21 and older the ability to legally bet on sporting events from their mobile devices. However, those efforts may ultimately wind up being an exercise in futility.
On Tuesday, the Senate Gaming Committee neglected to pick up House Bill 1302, or the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, allowing the legislation to be killed by deadline. To keep the spirit of the bill alive, the House Gaming Committee gutted Senate Bills 2381 and 2510 and inserted the exact language of their bill into both.
The ongoing feud between the two chambers remains alive for another round of infighting. Two years ago, the legislature passed a bill creating a study committee to assess the potential impact of mobile sports betting in Mississippi. Last year, the House voted overwhelmingly to let folks place wagers on athletic competitions from their devices, but the Senate railroaded the decision by its counterpart.
Back in early February of this year, lawmakers in the House passed the bill legalizing mobile sports betting in an 82-10 vote, and according to the legislation’s author, Saucier Republican Rep. Casey Eure, concessions were made to meet demands made by the Senate.
Nonetheless, Jackson Democrat Sen. David Blount, who chairs his chamber’s gaming committee, refuses to budge on his stance that mobile sports betting would not benefit the Magnolia State. Blount has not been convinced that the state’s existing gaming industry would not take a hit if people could gamble from their mobile devices instead of visiting a casino.
“The reason we have gaming in Mississippi is to encourage investment, to create jobs, and to grow tourism to bring other people from other places to Mississippi. Mobile sports betting doesn’t do that,” Blount said. “Mobile sports betting is in a lot of states, and a lot of people want to do that. I respect that, but it is a different product than the product that we already have.”
Keeping the current gaming industry in mind, the Mobile Sports Wagering Act’s text allows Mississippi casinos to link with up to two platforms, such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, etc. The goal is to protect existing casinos from hemorrhaging financially by allowing the casino to intertwine its rewards program with the mobile sports betting platform and entice foot traffic through various incentives.
“I am committed to, and this bill is still committed to, our brick-and-mortar casinos,” Eure said in February. “All mobile sports betting will be tethered to a brick-and-mortar casino in the state of Mississippi.”
The platforms would be responsible for implementing a proper geofencing structure to ensure bets connected to a Mississippi casino are not being made outside the Magnolia State. Users would also have to supply proper age verification and identification to the platform to prevent illegal gambling.
According to lawmakers in the House, legalizing mobile sports betting would tap into a new revenue stream and curb much of the illegal gambling reportedly happening statewide. Mobile sports betting has been occurring in Mississippi for years now, as reported by Mississippi Gaming Commission executive director Jay McDaniel. However, it has not been conducted legally, and the state has not reaped any tax benefits.
Eure and others have contended that Mississippi, one of 19 states that have not legalized online wagering outside of a brick-and-mortar gaming facility, leads the nation in illegal online sports betting searches via Google. Neighboring states, like Louisiana and Tennessee, secured a large sum of tax revenue from mobile sports betting last year. Tennessee generated nearly $100 million while Louisiana hauled in $64 million. Mississippi, on the other hand, acquired nothing.
“That just goes to show you that we’re losing a lot of tax revenue to these [illegal] online sports betting [platforms],” Eure added. “Once you pass and legalize mobile sports betting, the illegal sites are basically gone. Everybody goes to a brick-and-mortar casino, and they start doing it the proper way.”
On the Senate side, Blount does not have as cavalier of an attitude as his cross-chamber colleague. Instead, he is concerned about the domino effect that could follow the implementation of mobile sports betting. The greatest fear is that the proverbial slippery slope would lead to full-blown iGaming becoming a reality in Mississippi, giving folks the option to play just about all the games they would find at a casino on their phones, tablets, computers, etc.
“The industry is divided 50/50,” Blount added. “There are a lot of casino owners in this state who believe that this is going to hurt their business, and it’s going to move from brick-and-mortar casinos and people having to come to the casinos to gamble to people increasingly gambling on their phones.”
It is unlikely that the Senate Gaming Committee will have a sudden change of heart by the time the current legislative session ends, but for now, efforts to bring mobile sports betting to Mississippi remain alive.
