Online sports betting legislation failed to pass last year but gained more traction than many believed it would. Now that the new legislative session has convened in Jackson, there are already rumors that mobile sports betting bills will be drafted for consideration again this year.
Sports Betting Resurfaces
Last year, the House passed HB 774, a sports betting bill, by a 97-14 margin. That legislation as initially written would have allowed up to 30 mobile sports betting licenses, all required to be tethered to a land-based casino for a share of the profits. However, the Senate made several amendments and ultimately passed its retooled version of the bill, 36-15, before it stagnated in a bipartisan conference committee.
The legislative session came to an end before the debate could continue, and Mississippians who were eager to place an online sports bet outside the grounds of one of the state’s many casinos would have to wait at least another year.
Smaller Casinos Left Out?
The disputes between the lawmakers ranged from the proposed tax rate of 12% on mobile sportsbooks‘ adjusted gross revenues to the threat mobile sports betting sites would pose to land-based casinos despite the clause that sportsbooks would have to partner with them. That begged another question as to whether the smaller casinos would benefit at all, considering the larger and more well-known casinos would be a preferable partner for the sportsbooks.
Another hotly contested topic was where the projected $25 million in tax revenue would go and how it would be divided. The original bill had 4% being sent to the municipalities where the partner casino is located and 8% to the state. However, the Senate amended that too, directing all 12% to the state for infrastructure repairs.
iGaming Support
One other bone of contention between lawmakers was the specter of iGaming being wedged into the legislative discussion.
Some lawmakers believed it would be shortsighted to restrict any gaming bill to mobile sports betting, considering online casino gaming has proven to generate much more revenue. However, iGaming was an immediate red flag to those legislators who were on the fence and was yet another facet of the discussions that stalled the legislation.
Even the most ardent proponents of mobile sports betting in New York understood that conflating iGaming with sports betting was an impenetrable roadblock towards getting sports betting legislation passed. Once the legislation was limited to sports betting, the law was passed, and New York is now the most lucrative sports betting market in the nation. To this day, New York still hasn’t passed a separate online casino gambling bill, but that too could be coming to the Empire State sooner than later.
Senate Gaming Committee Chairman and negotiator David Blount also brought up iGaming as a major obstacle in getting sports betting passed in Mississippi.
“The thing that is different about Mississippi is we have an established casino industry that employs tens of thousands of people,” Blount said after last year’s legislative session ended without sports betting legislation passed. “The bill that passed the House would have allowed for iGaming, 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 we 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.”
