Mississippi's Struggle to Adopt Online Sports Betting

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00:00Since sports betting was legalized, we have talked about this state quite a bit because

00:03they were really one of the first ones to get sports betting going back in 2018.

00:08That of course is Mississippi.

00:10But something is, as I want to say, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, must be in the water

00:15there because how they can get in-person betting and six years later, still not have online

00:22sports betting tells me there's something going on in a backroom somewhere, Pat, with

00:28The Beau Ravage.

00:29I mean, no offense, Beau Ravage.

00:30I know you guys have a sports bet.

00:32Are they blocking this?

00:34What exactly is going on here?

00:36Are they afraid that they're going to lose money here?

00:38And I understand that notion, but I mean, this has gone on way too long, Pat, without

00:42an explanation.

00:43I know.

00:44It is kind of crazy to think about because when we look at the landscape and so much

00:47of what we're talking about now is other states in the Southeast expanding.

00:51I mean, Alabama doesn't even have a lottery.

00:53We're talking about building a lottery or passing a lottery this year, potentially with

00:58sports betting.

00:59But again, I think we've talked about in the past that Alabama's going to maybe skirt that

01:03for a little bit and just get lottery done.

01:05Georgia again, South Carolina, all these states have this little fundamentalist side of them

01:10that is pushing back on gambling and sports betting.

01:14And I don't think that's any different in Mississippi.

01:16Mississippi, of course, does have that just vibrant casino culture, which I think helped

01:21that 2018 passage of in-person sports betting.

01:25And since then, they've tried a lot to get mobile sports betting passed, and it just

01:30hasn't moved.

01:31And I think to your point, it is a lot of cannibalization concerns by a lot of the locally

01:36owned operators.

01:38Of course, they've got big casino companies, national and regional casino companies that

01:42are for expansion online.

01:44But I don't think you can discount the effect that local ownership has politically at state

01:52level governments.

01:53And I think that's kind of what's been holding it back, is those cannibalization concerns

01:56from the local casinos that don't have the weight of these giant casino conglomerates

02:01behind them.

02:02And then so then we get to this year, and I mean, we've talked about it quite a bit

02:06over the last couple of weeks as we head into this new legislative session.

02:10The sales of sports betting and even online gambling as a whole kind of momentum, the

02:17sales are kind of getting slack.

02:20There's not a lot of...

02:22The headwinds are growing, as we've talked about the US congressional hearings, the big

02:27media articles talking about problem gambling, just kind of the backlash of all the ads and

02:32frequent stuff.

02:33I was just reading an article about how the DraftKings partnership with Delta Airlines

02:37is just another kind of step of how annoyingly prevalent sports betting now is to people

02:43who don't sports bet.

02:44And that's where this kind of backlash is coming from.

02:49And I think that might be why we might not see a bill.

02:52The senator who leads the gambling committee in Mississippi said he doesn't plan to file

02:57a bill unless the gambling commission tells him to.

03:00And the gambling commission has come out and said, you know what, we don't weigh in on

03:04any bills or laws.

03:06That's to them.

03:07We just regulate it.

03:08So he's not going to file it.

03:09He said, you know, there's certainly other people who could file it.

03:12And so I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bill in Mississippi.

03:15But you know, it doesn't seem like it's going to have a ton of momentum.

03:19But again, anything can happen in the political world and in these legislative sessions.

03:23So something could move.

03:25But again, we're not seeing anything right now in Mississippi.

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