Mississippi's Struggle to Legalize Online Sports Betting

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00:00All right. Well, we've covered Sam this story over and over again over the last few years.

00:03I guess we're going to do it again here today. Sports betting has been online in Mississippi,

00:07one of the first states to legalize it, have it in person, and they have not been able to

00:11get online sports betting going. There's been fights with the casinos. They, you know, simply

00:16put, they want people going there in person. Is there any change in that view? I know they

00:21keep talking, Sam, but every time it feels like it gets close, it goes the other way.

00:25Yeah, well, if we're not going to run out of states to talk about anytime soon,

00:29we're probably going to keep talking about Mississippi, keep talking about Georgia,

00:32keep talking about Minnesota for a couple of years to come. It makes reporters like myself,

00:36it gives us more to cover, more to do. But unfortunately, it's been the same story

00:40in Mississippi. Although this bill was advanced, this bill they have that would

00:44legalize online sports betting, it did make it out of a key house committee ahead of a

00:51deadline this week. So it's still alive. There's still hope for it. But it's not looking great

00:56because the changes that were made to this bill would kind of conflict with what happened in the

01:00Senate, which is already kind of rejected. So this bill has passed the House already,

01:04which is pretty far. It's a good, significant milestone in terms of wanting to get online

01:08sports betting legalized. But in terms of what happened this session, it's not looking great

01:13because the Senate has been sort of so resistant to it. Mississippi, of course, was one of the

01:18first states that legalized sports betting back in 2018. But their casino industry has been very

01:24resistant to changing it from just in person to bringing it online. So you have a lot of appetite

01:31for online sports betting in Mississippi, and it's only going to keep growing every year.

01:34I think there was a poll that came out pretty recently, I think about 77% of respondents said

01:39they're in favor of legalizing online sports betting, which then the politicians take to the

01:44floor and say, hey, the people want this. But of course, you know, they don't just serve the people,

01:48there's also a very big casino industry. So as far as states that are completely eliminated,

01:54I wouldn't put Mississippi in that category yet. There's still some time to get this done.

01:58We'll see if they can make any kind of concession with the casinos. Online sports betting is

02:02obviously only going to get bigger and bigger. The argument is it's happening anyway, you might

02:06as well legalize it. But it's not shaping up to be a great rate for the prospects this year.

02:12We'll see if it happens maybe next year, maybe the year after that.