After the Mississippi House amended two Senate bills, including a proposed sweepstakes ban, to add the prospect of legalizing sports betting to the language, the pieces of legislation have been sent back to the Senate.
On Tuesday, the House passed SB 2381, which primarily concerns the state’s coastal tidelands boundary, and Sen. Joey Fillingane’s SB 2510 on offshore casinos and sweepstakes by large majorities, flipping them back to their original chamber for concurrence.
The House Gaming Committee’s Chair Rep. Casey Eure added sports wagering language to both Senate bills last week. Eure’ previously saw his’s own sports betting bill HB 1302 died in the Senate Gaming Committee after an 88-10 vote of approval on the House floor.
Now, SB 2381 and SB 2510 return to the Senate in very different forms than they left it. The deadline for concurrence on returned bills regarding taxation or budgets is March 21, so the Senate only has a few days to act. They could approve it, reject it, stal it or call for a conference with the House to reach a compromise. Mississippi’s legislature adjourns April 6.
Gaming Committee chairs at odds on sports betting
Eure has suggested online sports betting could generate an extra $50 million in state revenue through taxation and would also help curb the illegal market. A big argument has been that bettors in Mississippi are already betting. GeoComply found a 77% year-over-year increase during the NFL season in user accounts within the state trying to access sportsbooks that are legal in other states.
In contrast, Eure’s counterpart as chair in the Senate Gaming Committee is noted sports betting expansion opponent Sen. David Blount, who has said repeatedly that he is unconvinced about the revenue potential of launching online sports wagering and concerned about cannibalization of retail casinos in the state.
The Senate committee has not taken up a mobile sports betting bill so far this session, and Blount said early this year that he would only file such a measure if it was requested by the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
Blount has also voiced his displeasure at sports betting being shoehorned into the coastal tidelands bill. He said last week that “to link bills together when the topics are not related to each other, to me, is not the way the legislature should work.”
Casinos voice opposition
The sports betting language included in the returned bills would give existing casinos up to two skins to partner with online sportsbooks or racebooks. No tax rate has been specified.
The Clarion-Ledger reports that eight companies with a stake in Mississippi’s retail casino industry oppose the legislation. The likes of PENN Entertainment and Churchill Downs Inc. run brick-and-mortar locations in the state.
In a letter to lawmakers obtained by the newspaper, the opponents opined that, “state-wide expansion of gaming, with no local referendums, putting a casino in the hands of every person in Mississippi, no matter where they are located … This is not the right vision for gaming in Mississippi.”
Where does this leave sweepstakes casinos?
What happens next affects not just the potential of sports betting but also what is happening in Mississippi’s unregulated online casino world.
SB 2510 proposes that the state outlaw offshore online gaming sites as well as digital sweepstakes casinos, sticking both categories with one label.
The proposed sweepstakes ban sailed through the Senate last month by a unanimous 51-0 vote and, with the sports betting language added, passed 83-19-18 in the House this week.
