HATTIESBURG AMERICAN: Mississippi can get it right on mobile sports betting
For the second year in a row, the Mississippi House has advanced legislation to legalize mobile sports betting in the state.
House Bill 1302, the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, which includes a 12% tax on online sports wagers, addresses several concerns that doomed similar legislation in 2024 and provides for a $6 million fund to support brick-and-mortar casinos in the state, as well as critical infrastructure.
Consumers want to place sports bets, the question for Mississippi is where they’ll allow residents to do it and how much illicit online betting they’re willing to accept before establishing a legal avenue. The Mississippi Senate Gaming Committee should move this improved bill forward.
The argument against mobile sports betting has always been split between shielding casino revenues and protecting consumers from the potential harms of gambling addiction. Chiefly, lawmakers worry that allowing people to wager from home will cut into the bottom line of the state’s brick-and-mortar casinos, which themselves are a bet by the state on tax revenue gains. This led to the inclusion of a provision in HB 1302 setting up a Retail Sports Wagering Protection Fund to cover shortfalls for casinos that experience dips in their annual revenue.
Mississippi already allows in-person sports betting as of 2018, meaning that the infrastructure exists for sportsbooks to partner with local casinos and offer mobile betting options under a new legal framework.
The demand is undeniable. Nationally, Americans have close to $1.4 billion in bets placed on this week's Super Bowl LIX. A consumer report from Paysafe showed that amongst 1,700 sports betting consumers and those interested in betting, 65% were interested in mobile options versus 46% for in-person gambling. Since the start of the NFL season, Mississippi recorded 8.7 million attempts by residents to access legal mobile sportsbooks elsewhere.