Mississippi Online Sports Betting Bill Easily Survives House Vote

The appetite for legal mobile sports betting in Mississippi seems stronger than ever, as evidenced by a 97-14 vote Thursday in the Mississippi House of Representatives to advance the “Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act.” The act would give residents of the Magnolia State access to some of our best sports betting apps.

HB 774 aims to expand the Mississippi sports betting platform past its current retail-only focus to one that would allow remote registration for Mississippi sports betting apps and wagers to be placed anywhere within state lines.

Mississippi allows brick-and-mortar sports betting at the state's 26 retail casinos. It provides some limited mobile sports wagering while physically on the properties of a few of the state's casinos. The limited in-person and on-site mobile platform has been in place since 2018.

The Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act

The Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, or HB 774, is an attempt to legalize mobile horse race betting and sports wagering sites in the state.

The state's casinos would be allowed to partner with one mobile sports betting operator each, providing widespread online wagering opportunities, pending regulatory approval.

The minimum age to register and become a user of one of the state's mobile sports betting platforms would be 21, and registration would be expanded so that bettors could sign up and place wagers from anywhere in the state, not just at physical casinos.

The tax rate under the Bill would be set at 12% of gross revenues for providers in the Magnolia State. Revenues would go toward repairing roads and bridges in the state.

Support for the proposal

The latest push to broaden the Mississippi legal sports betting industry comes at a time that Super Bowl betting and the impending March Madness are set to dominate the sporting conversation in America. 

It helps proponents' cause that neighboring states Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana each have a respectable legal sports wagering scene and will be taking advantage of the two biggest sporting events on U.S. soil. Georgia sports betting also looks as though it is moving toward the launch of its own mobile sports wagering platform, perhaps this year.

The overall appetite seems to be there as well, as Casey Eure, the author of HB 774, commented. “Mississippi is number one for illegal online sports betting in the country,” he said. “Mississippi was the highest state for searches on illegal offshore accounts as a percent of all Google searches.”

Eure said that his plan was to take a logical next step for an already active industry in the state. “All I'm doing is trying to give another product to our casino industry in our state to stay competitive,” Eure said. “And I feel like that's what we're doing.”

In the end

The Mississippi Senate will be the next body in the state to weigh in with its thoughts on an expanded legal sports betting platform in the state. It is unclear as to how they will greet the proposal.

Casey Eure has reportedly already been selling Senators on the idea and the fact that between $25 million and $35 million in tax revenue could be generated by such an expansion in the first year of legalization. Mississippi is currently missing out on that revenue stream, on something that is already taking place illegally.

Senate leaders have until April 2 to pass the proposal out of committee, so expect the subject of legal sports wagering in Mississippi to remain a hot-button issue in the state.