A bid to take Mississippi sports betting online took a step forward this week.
Rep. Casey Eure guided House Bill 1302 through the House Gaming Committee, which he chairs, this week. It now heads to the House floor. Mississippi legalized in-person sports betting in 2018, but efforts to take it online have faltered since then.
Previous Mississippi sports betting legalization attempts have been sidelined because of brick-and-mortar casino cannibalization fears. Eure acknowledged that in his statements, explaining the licenses need to be tethered to the state’s casinos.
Mississippi online sports betting changes
Last year, an online sports betting bill passed the House but failed to get through the Senate. Eure made some adjustments in an attempt to ensure it met the upper chamber’s concerns.
One change is providing each casino with two skins rather than one.
It also creates a $6 million fund from sports betting taxes to help mitigate small casino losses, should they fail to partner with a sportsbook operator. The locally owned casinos are the main opponents fearing cannibalization.
Base framework
Mississippi would tax sports betting revenue at 12%.
Beyond the $6 million fund, the taxes would go toward the Emergency Road and Bridge Repair Fund.
Eure believes up to $80 million in tax revenue is lost yearly to illegal sportsbooks. During the NFL betting season, Mississippians made more than 8.69 million attempts to log into legal sportsbooks in other states, according to recent GeoComply data.
Previous Mississippi attempts
Last year, the House passed a bill by a 97-14 margin.
The Senate struck the bill’s language, and the bill then died in a conference committee between the two chambers. That came after the legislature created the Mobile Online Sports Betting Task Force to help advance the issue.
After last year’s failure to pass the legislation, an industry source told LSR, “there’s a lot of work to be done in the Senate.”