Barely a week after clearing the committee stage, the proposed Mississippi online sports betting bill has passed the House of Representatives and moved to the Senate. On Wednesday, January 29, the measure was unanimously approved by the House Gaming Committee, and on Monday, February 3, Rep. Casey Eure presented the proposed legislation to House members.
Authored by Rep. Eure (R-Saucier), the bill is identical to the measure that passed in the Mississippi House and was forwarded to the Senate around this time last year. Unfortunately, that 2024 proposal was deadlocked in the Senate Committee as lawmakers could not agree on many provisions.
Notably, the Committee-approved version of the bill which passed the House by a vote of 89-11 introduces some new developments and addresses concerns raised by senators last year. At its core, HB 1302, also known in full as the “Mississippi Sports Wagering Act” will allow residents aged 21 and above to legally bet on sports from their mobile devices.
One of the major additions is that the bill will permit the 26 retail casinos in the Magnolia State to partner with or create a maximum of two online sportsbooks. This provision ultimately envisages a possible maximum 52 mobile sports betting platforms, up from 26 last year.
Although the existing brick-and-mortar casinos will not be required to pay additional licensing fees to launch sportsbooks, they will remit up to 12% of their in-person sports wagering revenue to the state. If passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, the measure anticipates that sportsbooks will debut in the state by December 8, 2025.
Responding to claims made last year by members of the Senate Committee that credit card payment for bets will worsen gambling addiction, the new measure has excluded the option. The only available banking options are debit and e-wallets such as Venmo or PayPal.
Eure also noted that verification requirements are more stringent under the new bill. Bettors will be required to verify their age and identity. Additionally, the mobile sports betting measure seeks to implement geofencing technology that will guarantee that bets are only placed within state borders.
“You’re going to have to be within the state of Mississippi to place an online mobile sports bet,” Eure remarked.
Reps had stated that the state’s primary effort was to strengthen physical sports betting. And amid fears that mobile sportsbooks will veer off that focus, Eure re-assured members of the House.
“As I told y’all last year, I’m committed to and this bill is committed to our bricks-and-mortar casinos,” Rep. Eure, the Chairman of the House Gaming Committee told fellow lawmakers on Monday. “All mobile sports betting will still be tethered to bricks-and-mortar casinos in the state of Mississippi.”
Another major fear that resurfaced during the House vote was that many big sportsbooks brands like FanDuel and DraftKings will choose to partner with similarly reputable retail casinos in the state. Rep. Robert Johnson (D-Natchez) believes this may harm smaller gambling establishments.
“You talk about partners, but there is nothing that says FanDuel or ESPN has to partner with any particular casino,” Johnson said. “They just have to partner with a casino in the state of Mississippi.”
In a bid to protect casinos at the lower revenue rung, the sports betting measure aims to establish a $6 million fund that will draw upon sports betting taxes. Casinos can utilize money from this fund for the first five years after the legalization of mobile sports betting.
On the flip side, proponents of the bill believe that it will curb the proliferation of illegal offshore sports betting apps in the state. Materials presented to the House Committee showed that since the start of the current NFL season, there have been 8.69 million attempts to bet on mobile sportsbooks legally in the state.
Should the bill scale through all remaining hurdles, Mississippi will be able to pool in taxes from legal sports betting activities and avoid losing the revenue to other 30 states and Washington D.C. with legal sports betting industries. Mississippi had legalized in-sports sports betting as far back as 2018, but multiple attempts to introduce mobile sports wagering had failed.
For now, all eyes turn to the Senate as it considers the measure.