00:00State of Mississippi, I believe I said Missouri in the last segment made a mistake there,
00:05Mississippi. So Sam, when Mississippi legalized sports betting, it was a novelty. It was one of
00:11the very first in-person retail shops that you could go bet on sports outside of Las Vegas,
00:18Nevada. And so I remember going there at the time thinking to myself, wow, like when they get online
00:23in a few months or a year, this could be the Mecca of the South as far as sports betting is concerned.
00:29And they got lapped by everybody. Is it these hotels that they basically don't want to see
00:35this happen? Because other than that, what is the roadblock here?
00:40Yeah, Mississippi, you know, we're I don't know how many years into sports betting now.
00:45Like you mentioned, Craig, one of the first states to legalize sports betting,
00:48in part because it has about 30 casinos. And it used to be when, you know, states were starting
00:54to legalize sports betting that the ones with a lot of casinos, the New Jersey's of the world,
00:58the Mississippis, they were kind of the ones who embraced legalizing it because first it was done
01:03in person. It would attract a lot of people from other states, certainly around Mississippi that
01:08didn't have betting for a long time. Alabama, Georgia is obviously one. Louisiana had been a
01:13holdout for a very long time. But then once everything started to go online and the industry
01:18really started to shift from just in-person casinos and you saw how much money was being put
01:23in online sports betting, the kind of the very thing, the very reason that you had a reason to
01:28legalize sports betting in the first place, those casinos, they kind of became a roadblock in terms
01:33of, you know, now legalizing something online and having competitors. There's been a lot made
01:38in the past about, you know, whether that would steal jobs from casinos, whether people would be
01:43more inclined if sports betting is legal online to just stay home and not go to the casino. I think
01:50there's been a lot of evidence we've seen out there since those claims have been put out that
01:54that's actually not the case. And people like going to the casino in general to bet and people
01:59like being able to bet more at home. They just kind of bet more. It doesn't kind of take the activity
02:04away. But in Mississippi, I think because you have so many casinos, the big ones, the Caesars of the
02:10world, the ones that are partnered with DraftKings, they have less power. They have less sway. They're not
02:15able to influence the legislature as easily because you have smaller casinos out there, which
02:19are worried if it gets legalized online, maybe we won't get a cut on the revenue.
02:24This is now, I think, the sixth year that this is being tried in the state. You have a bill from
02:28Representative Jay McKnight, which would allow all the 30 casinos to partner with a sports book for
02:34a very low tax rate. It actually hasn't been hard to get this passed out of the House. Each of the
02:39last two years, a bill has progressed in the House, but it's been the Senate where we've really seen it
02:43tied up. So that would be the case again this year. If it can get through the Senate, it can probably
02:47become legal and you could have online sports betting pretty quickly in Mississippi. But again,
02:51it's been the roadblock in the Senate with their casino interests. We'll see if anything changes
02:56this time around. The farthest they've ever gotten is 2023. They passed a bill to study
03:02online sports betting and figure out how they would do it if they ever were. It's obviously been some
03:07time since then. So we'll see if just time has changed things or if it's kind of the same story as
03:12always. But one of the few states will be watching in terms of online sports betting this year for sure.
03:16We'll see you guys later.
03:20So
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