The Mississippi Senate said no on Thursday to the idea of adopting a bill to ban sweepstakes and legalize online sports betting in its current form, instead inviting conference on SB 2510.
Sen. Joey Fillingane’s bill proposes explicitly outlawing digital sweepstakes casinos and would charge operators and promoters of such offerings with a felony. It has been returned to its original chamber after prior approval in both the Senate and the House.
However, during its time in the latter chamber, the House Gaming Commission’s chair Rep. Casey Eure added sports wagering language before returning the bill for concurrence. Eure’s own sports betting bill HB 1302 died in the Senate Gaming Committee earlier this session after it had been approved on the House floor.
In its current form, the bill would not only take a harder stance on illegal online casino and sweepstakes gaming, but also give existing retail casinos up to two skins to partner with online sportsbooks or racebooks.
SB 2510 was first approved in the Senate by a 51-0 vote in February without sports betting included. With the wagering issue added, it passed 83-19-18 in the House earlier in March and returned to the Senate for concurrence.
On Thursday, SB 2510 was introduced briefly and a voice vote quickly declined to concur and invited conference. Senators will now meet with House representatives to see if they can reach a compromise before the Mississippi legislature adjourns on April 6.
So much to discuss, so little time
While Eure is a staunch advocate of online sports betting, suggesting it could generate an extra $50 million in state revenue through taxation, his counterpart as chair in the Senate Gaming Committee is a noted opponent.
Sen. David Blount said early this year that he would only take up a sports betting bill in his committee this session if it were requested by the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
After Eure added the sports betting language to not only the sweepstakes casino bill but also a bill primarily concerned with coastal tidelands, Blount told local media he disapproved of merging unrelated topics in one piece of legislation. “To link bills together when the topics are not related to each other, to me, is not the way the legislature should work,” he said recently.
Fillingane said earlier this year that the Gaming Commission and established licensed casinos favor his sweepstakes ban. However, some retail casinos and stakeholders have opposed online sports betting expansion, citing cannibalization fears.
