Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann speaks to the press at the Neshoba County Fair, June 2026 (Photo by Frank Corder | Magnolia Tribune)
- Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives Jason White says as a gaming state, “we have stuck our head in the sand, and we are getting left behind on this avenue of gaming revenue.”
Mobile sports betting is big business, but Mississippi lawmakers, particularly in the state Senate, have been reluctant to jump on the bandwagon.
If Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann (R) has his way, that opposition will continue when legislators return to the Capitol in January.
This week, Hosemann took to social media to express his displeasure with mobile sports betting, writing on X that online mobile sports betting “increases the risk of gambling-related harm and addiction compared with traditional in-person betting,” citing roughly 1 in 5 people with problem gambler disorder attempt suicide.
“Our young adults are particularly susceptible and can receive push notifications to bet on their phones 24/7,” Hosemann said.
The Lt. Governor went on to say that mobile sports betting could undermine the billions of dollars invested in brick-and-mortar gaming facilities across Mississippi, “increase opportunities for misconduct and illegal actions involving athletes, and raise serious questions about whether the resulting tax revenue would even be sufficient to offset the associated social and economic costs.”
“The actual revenue is unknown, and the last mobile sports betting bill passed by the House included a 25% tax cut for casinos,” Hosemann added. “Mobile sports betting wouldn’t create a single job for Mississippians and comes with a social cost that is of increasing concern.”
Hosemann urged the state Senate, where he is the presiding officer for another year, to continue to reject “this harmful legislation.”
Speaker White’s Take
Over the past several legislative sessions, the Mississippi House of Representatives has repeatedly passed bills to regulate mobile sports betting in the state, just to have them die in the Senate.
Speaker Jason White (R) told Magnolia Tribune Thursday that while he does not wake up every morning thinking about how to pass mobile sports betting, there is a simple truth that must understood: “Sports betting is already perfectly legal in Mississippi, and our casino operators already have sports betting on property.”
“In addition, thousands of Mississippians are accessing and betting on sports through illegal sites and other mobile platforms, including the national ‘predictive markets’ through Kalshi, which appear to be here for the long haul,” Speaker White said. “Our gaming commission admittedly does not have the bandwidth and cannot police and reign in the illegal activity, they’ve said as much. Betting consumers have adapted and are placing mobile online bets.”
White said as a gaming state, “we have stuck our head in the sand, and we are getting left behind on this avenue of gaming revenue.”
The Speaker did not know what prompted Hosemann’s comments this week, saying he had no interest in a disagreement with the Lt. Governor concerning mobile sports betting. However, White did point out that “most every casino operator in Mississippi supports mobile sports betting.”
“Most of our casino operators actually operate mobile sports betting books in the other states where they operate,” White said, adding, “Everyone knows that the Coast delegation wants mobile sports betting, the House members from the Coast have voted overwhelmingly for it multiple times. Our gaming chairman is from the Coast and has great working relationships with the operators. There is some concern about the viability of our ‘River casinos,’ but that concern stretches to way more than any debate about mobile sports betting.”
That is why Speaker White said the House has placed several safeguard provisions in their legislation that River casinos asked for.
Senate Continues to Kill House Bills
During this year’s session, the House passed two bills dealing with mobile sports betting. Both died at the hands of Senate Gaming Committee chairman state Senator David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson. As Speaker White noted, the House legislation died in Blount’s committee “without much more than a whisper.”
“That speaks volumes as well,” White said.
The last attempt this year was the “Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act,” put forward by State Rep. Casey Eure (R), the House Gaming Committee chairman. It passed the House by a vote of 100 to 11.
READ MORE: Mobile sports betting dies again in Mississippi Senate
(Photo Jeremy Pittari | Magnolia Tribune – 2024)
The measure would have imposed a 22% tax on mobile sports betting, up from 18.5% proposed previously. When presenting the bill to the House. Eure said the increase would put Mississippi in line with the national average. The House bill would have also reduced the state gaming tax from 8% to 6%, giving “approximately a $48 million tax cut to the casinos.”
“Mobile [sports betting] at 22% is projected to bring in $100 million per year,” Eure told the House. He also said the tax cut to the brick-and-mortar casinos would allow them to “reinvest in their properties, give employees pay raises, do things they need to do to keep them up and going to stay competitive in our market.”
Eure’s bill would have sent $50 million per year from the revenue generated from mobile sports betting to the Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, over the next 10 years in an effort to provide a revenue stream to shore up the system’s $26 billion unfunded liabilities.
In killing the bills in the Senate, Blount has cited financial concerns, saying the estimated revenue projections were overly optimistic. He also said even if mobile sports betting were taxed at the higher rate when combined with a 25% casino tax cut Mississippi would lose money.
House lawmakers are likely to make yet another attempt to move this conversation forward when the gavel falls in January 2027.
