The effort to legalize sports betting in Mississippi took a twist this week. After an approved House bill died in the Senate, the House Gaming Committee has added sports betting language to two crossover Senate bills.
The Committee is chaired by Rep. Casey Eure, who authored the HB 1302 sports betting measure that crossed chambers late last month after being approved by a resounding 88-10 vote in the House. That bill was stifled this week in the Senate Gaming Committee, which is chaired by Sen. David Blount.
Eure’s House committee has now added sports betting to the agenda of SB 2381, which proposes an amendment regarding a land leasing issue that is relevant to retail casino gaming.
It also shoehorned sports wagering into the language of SB 2510, Blount and Sen. Joey Fillingane’s bill that would expressly ban offshore online gaming and casino sites from doing business in the state. The bill’s language throws offshore online casinos and digital sweepstakes casinos under the same blanket terminology, outlawing both categories.
Could sports betting throw a wrench in the works?
That bill made headlines last month when the Senate passed it 44-1, becoming the first U.S. legislative body to green-light a prohibition on sweeps.
While that bill passed through multiple Senate committees and has now been approved by Eure’s House committee, shoehorning in sports betting could complicate things.
The bill’s amended language now notes that “online sports pools and online race books are legal in the State of Mississippi,” provided that their legalization does not authorize any other form of interactive gaming. The added language proposes the same measures as Eure’s own Senate-rejected bill: Mississippi’s commercial casinos would be able to partner with up to two online sportsbooks each and offer sports betting that would be taxed at 12%.
The move to add sports betting to two progressing Senate bills in the House drew the ire of Blount, who has opposed online sports betting repeatedly, voicing concerns about potential cannibalization of retail casino traffic as well as doubts over just how much economic benefit online sports wagering would bring to the state.
“I don’t think legislation should be something that’s traded,” Blount said, per the Clarion Ledger. “I think each bill should be looked at on its own merits. If you think it’s a good bill, you should pass it, and if you think it’s a bad bill, certainly you have every right to oppose it, but to link bills together when the topics that are not related to each other, to me, is not the way the legislature should work.”
He was talking about SB 2381, but one could argue that objection could equally be applied to the online casino and sweeps bill.
Eure had reworked sports betting bill
Blount’s House counterpart Eure had reworked HB 1302 in an attempt to get people on side. The changes included allowing casinos to spread their bets by partnering with two sportsbooks rather than one, as well as a provision that would dedicate $6 million a year of betting tax revenue to casinos that don’t partner with online sportsbooks.
Despite those amendments, where the events of this week will leave either the sports betting issue or the online casino and sweepstakes issue is uncertain.
