MS House passes online sports betting. It goes to the Senate with a big change for the Coast
A bill to allow online sports betting in Mississippi passed the House Thursday — with a big change — and moves on to the state Senate.
The vote was 97 for the bill and 14 against, and came as nearby states are literally jumping into the game in competition to Mississippi.
On Thursday the Georgia Senate passed mobile sports betting, said House Gaming Committee Chairman Casey Eure, and Alabama is coming next week with full casino legislation.
On Monday Eure introduced House Bill 774, the “Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act.”
The Gaming Committee approved the bill Tuesday, and it went to the floor for a vote Thursday.
Eure amended the bill before the vote so taxes from online sports betting would benefit all of Mississippi rather than just the handful of counties — including Harrison and Hancock — where the 26 casinos are located.
The original proposal was to follow the existing formula and send 8% of gross revenues from online sports betting to the state general fund and 4% to the local municipalities where the casino is located.
“Instead of sending it to the locals, we’re just sending it back to roads and bridges,” Eure said.
All 12 percent of the tax, which he estimates could range from $25 million to $50 million annually, would go into the emergency road and bridge fund.
In 2015, the state legislature diverted $36 million a year from the casino fund, earmarked to improve roads leading to the casinos, and uses it to back bonds to build and repair bridges in other areas of the state.
Demand is there
With neighboring states Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas already operating online sports betting, Eure said, it’s time for Mississippi to approve it. Online sports betting has been legal since January 2022 in Louisiana and now 90% of all sports wagers are made on a mobile app.
“The people of Mississippi want it,” Eure said. In his 14 years in office, Eure said he’s had more people call him from across the state asking for online wagering than for any other legislation.
“Mississippi is looked at as a model in the gaming industry,” he said, and he’s worked four years to craft the legislation for this bill.
“My number one goal is to protect our bricks and mortar casinos in Mississippi,” Eure said. This bill does a good job of that, he said.
How it would work
The major provisions are:
▪ The bill applies to online sports and race bets
▪ Wagers would have to go through one of the Mississippi casinos. “It does not cut them out,” he said.
▪ Players would be required to provide ID and age verification to show they are 21 or older to establish an account and be allowed to wager.
▪ Players can establish an account in person at a licensed casino or over the internet at Mississippi casino websites.
▪ Mississippi casinos can use Draft Kings, FanDuel or one of the other platforms to accept wagers.
▪ Players must be in Mississippi to place a wager, and the casinos and their platforms shall pay the costs to maintain geofencing or geolocating services to ensure the wager is made in the state.
How the bill was drafted
Since sports betting was legalized inside Mississippi casinos in 2018, bills were introduced, but never passed, to allow online wagering on sports.
In 2023, the state Legislature approved a study group to decide how Mississippi would handle online sports betting. Three hearings were held in the offseason and Eure said the ideas of Jay McDaniel, chairman of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, and other experts went into his bill.
A few casinos — less than 15% — are still hesitant to allow sports betting online, he said. But reports show Mississippi is losing money by not offering online wagering, Eure said.
Mississippi is the No. 1 state for Google searches for offshore online gambling, he said, with six of the top 10 searches in the U.S. coming from Gulfport and other cities in Mississippi.
In Louisiana and other states where online sports betting is legal, it was just the opposite, he said. Instead, 80% of the searches are for where to place bets with legal sportsbooks, he said.
Eure estimates Mississippi could see online sports betting becoming a $20-$30 million industry, with profits taxed at 12 percent, instead of the money going illegally offshore or to bookies.
