Mississippi House Speaker Jason White did not hold back when criticizing his legislative counterparts for neglecting to pass a bill that would legalize mobile sports betting.
“It looks like again this year, the Senate is going to stand in the way of mobile sports [betting]. Folks will continue to illegally gamble and bet on sports online,” White said on Thursday.
“That money will go elsewhere or into illegal dealers’ pockets instead of through the normal channels where our gaming officials could regulate it, and we would at least see the benefit of our operators making that money and Mississippians making it versus it hitting on the illegal market.”
Earlier this week, the Senate Gaming Committee allowed a deadline to kill the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, a piece of legislation that was overwhelmingly endorsed on the other end of the capitol. The bill served to allow individuals 21 and up to legally bet on athletic events from phones and other devices outside of the four walls of a brick-and-mortar casino.
On Tuesday, anticipating the Senate would kill the bill, lawmakers in the House gutted two Senate bills and inserted the exact text of the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act to keep the spirit of the original legislation alive. However, White, a Republican from West, sees what he believes to be the writing on the wall and fully expects the Senate to reject the proposal once again.
Sen. David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who chairs the Senate Gaming Committee, has given White adequate reason to infer that mobile sports betting is essentially dead in the water. Blount has yet to budge on his stance that mobile sports betting would not benefit the Magnolia State.
Additionally, despite concessions made by the House to meet the chairman’s requests, Blount has not yet been convinced that the state’s existing gaming industry would not take a hit if people could gamble from their mobile devices instead of visiting a casino.
“The reason we have gaming in Mississippi is to encourage investment, to create jobs, and to grow tourism to
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