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House and Senate members failed to reach a consensus over legislation to permit mobile sports betting in Mississippi before a key deadline, marking another failed effort to expand the state’s wagering options.
The Magnolia State was one of the earliest adopters of sports wagering following the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in May 2018, having already enacted legislation on fantasy sports that included language to permit sports betting in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling.
However, that legislation only permits land-based wagering at state-licensed casinos, as well as mobile wagering strictly on an on-property basis.
Although the state was just behind New Jersey in launching sports betting in September 2018, since that day 29 new states have launched some form of mobile wagering, including three states that border Mississippi in Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana.
This year's effort to expand into state-wide mobile betting was the most significant to date, as the legislature enacted a bill in 2023 to create a Mobile Online Wagering Task Force that included legislators from both chambers, as well as key stakeholders in the state’s gaming industry to help craft a bill for the full legislature to consider.
Throughout the task force meetings, a divide became clear between larger casino owners, such as Penn Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, who favored the expansion to mobile betting, and smaller independent casino owners, who feared that the expansion would cannibalize their land-based profits.
Some smaller operators also voiced their concerns that the expansion would simply serve as a gateway to legalizing online casino gaming, which they said would be even more cannibalistic.
The Mississippi House quickly plowed ahead, passing House Bill 779 in February to give each casino one mobile skin.
But the bill required a three-fifths majority in both chambers to become law, in addition to the governor's signature, and the legislation then lingered in the Senate without even a hearing for the next two months.
A Senate committee agreed on April 2 to advance the bill with a strike-all amendment ahead of another deadline to continue negotiations. The full Senate followed suit on April 11 to send the bill to a conference committee in hopes of ironing out a compromise.
Ahead of a deadline to reach a deal on Monday night (April 29), it had become apparent that there was still concern among senators with regard to mobile sports betting.
“What’s different in Mississippi than just about any other state is we’ve had a very successful gaming industry for more than 30 years with tens of thousands of people working in casinos and billions of dollars investment, and how do you put a mobile product to work with that where it doesn’t cannibalize jobs in existing casinos?” Senator David Blount, the chairman of the Senate Gaming Committee and one of the members on the bill’s conference committee, told SuperTalk Mississippi last week.
Technically, there is a slight chance that sports-betting language could still be tacked onto another bill before adjournment of the state legislature later this month, or that deadlines could be suspended and the bill could be revived later, but both prospects are unlikely.
