Sid Salter
- Columnist Sid Salter says given national trends, the Mississippi Legislature faces yet another showdown on online sports betting.
For 31 years, the western-themed Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall has loomed large on the Tunica, Mississippi, casino market’s horizon. This month, owner Boyd Gaming announced the closing of the complex due to decreased demand over the last two decades.
Boyd Gaming’s initial involvement in Mississippi gaming came in 1994 with the opening of Sam’s Town in Tunica and a 1994 management contract with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians for the Silver Star Casino – a contract that expired in 2000. In 2011, Boyd acquired the IP Casino Resort in Biloxi.
The shuttering of Sam’s Town will leave five casinos operating in the Tunica market. Resorts Casino closed in Tunica in 2019, citing declining demand and increased competition from the expansion of casino gaming in Arkansas.
Why is the Tunica gaming market declining? First, there’s increasing competition from neighboring states, including the casinos in West Memphis, Arkansas and the legalization of online sports betting in Tennessee.
Second, the general rise of online gaming nationally is a huge threat to isolated, rural gaming markets like Tunica’s, where changing laws across state lines have weakened the once-lucrative appeal of their gambling houses. Third, some critics say local governments didn’t make wise decisions about tourism diversification.
But the rise of internet gaming or “igaming” is not just a threat to the Tunica market, but to all casino gaming in Mississippi. According to the American Gaming Association, Mississippi’s 26 commercial casinos in 2024 generated total gaming revenue of $2.43 billion, down 2.0 percent compared with the previous year.
Total statewide revenue from electronic gaming devices, as reported by the Mississippi Gaming Commission, was $2.02 billion, down 1.5 percent relative to 2023, while revenue from table games was $333.7 million, down 2.6 percent. Sports betting revenue suffered a sharper decline in revenue, dropping 18.8 percent to $41.6 million, according to AGA.
In Fiscal Year 2024, gaming was Mississippi’s sixth-largest source of General Fund revenue at $156.6 million or 2.1% of the General Fund. That makes gambling the most lucrative of the so-called “sin taxes,” including revenue collected on tobacco, liquor, or beer and wine. Another $96.5 million in gaming tax revenues was distributed to local governments that host casinos, and another $36 million in tax revenues went to road and bridge maintenance.
Given national trends, the Mississippi Legislature faces yet another showdown on online sports betting.
Across America, the growth of traditional gaming revenues has flattened, while real growth has occurred in internet gaming (up 26%) and sports betting (up 22%).
According to the gaming industry publication Legal Sports Report: “Mississippi sports betting is legal and live at casinos in the state. The state has many retail sportsbooks in operation, but just three sportsbook apps. Online sports betting in Mississippi is limited to users located on a licensed casino’s premises.”
You can download a sportsbook app from anywhere in the state, but you must be at a casino to place any wagers. Several Mississippi casinos have deals with sports books like FanDuel, BetMGM and Caesars. However, only BetMGM, Caesars, and Pearl River Resort have launched sports betting apps in the state.
In Mississippi, sports betting on casino premises has been legal since 2018. But off-site online sports betting from computers and smart devices remains illegal in Mississippi. Mississippi’s overall gaming revenue has declined each fiscal year since FY22 and is tracking to decline again this year.
The political and business disagreements that have put legislators at odds are well known. Existing brick-and-mortar casinos fear “cannibalization.” In the context of the gambling industry, “cannibalization” refers to the concern that a company’s new online gaming (igaming) platform will take customers and revenue away from its existing brick-and-mortar casino business.
Legislators fear the loss of jobs that land-based casinos produce compared to igaming. Proponents say igaming attracts a new, different, and younger customer and thereby “expands” gaming markets rather than substituting one for another.
Yet while the legislative debate continues, there is a constant erosion of Mississippi’s once-third-largest in the nation gaming market position to states with different igaming laws and new casinos across state lines.
Sid Salter
