- “The Mississippi House of Representatives has passed legislation multiple times to address this and regulate it while keeping that revenue here, but it has yet to be taken up in the Mississippi Senate by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann,” State Rep. Casey Eure said.
Mississippi’s Attorney General, along with attorneys general in 40 other states, have formed a coalition to provide assurance that the regulation power of “event contracts” for online sports-related betting falls to states, and not the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Event contracts, or prediction markets, allow people to bet or “trade” on future occurrences, most of the time the bets are sports related.
The coalition of attorneys general drafted a letter to the CFTC presenting the argument that these prediction markets are essentially sports books operating without regulation, and as such should fall under state regulation, not federal.
“Traditional sports bets and sports-related event contracts offered on designated contract markets (‘DCMs’) have no meaningful differences. In both, the transaction is precisely the same for the consumer,” the letter states. “In both, a player chooses among uncertain outcomes. In both, the outcome is binary- either the bet pays, or it does not. And in both, players bet relative to specific ‘odds’ that the wager will win. And neither serves the traditional hedging, price-information discovery, or risk-allocation purposes of derivatives typically regulated by the CFTC.”
Submission of the letter to the CFTC occurred in response to the federal agency requesting public comment in an effort to establish federal rules on how prediction markets operate.
“Mississippi, like many states, has carefully balanced competing interests to allow responsible sports betting here,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch on Monday. “The CFTC should not upend that balance, usurp state authorities without a clear Congressional directive, and leave states with the responsibility for cleaning up the impacts of sports betting without the ability to regulate it on the front end. The best interests of Mississippians are served by preserving our traditional police powers here.”
The attorneys general for all 41 participating states in the coalition argue that the federal agency does not have jurisdiction of prediction markets because they are not as equipped as well as state agencies when it comes to protecting the public from the potential harms betting can induce, especially for those with a gambling addiction. These bets can be made on mobile platforms, adding more avenues for Mississippians to place illegal wagers.
“The CFTC should recognize the limits of its power and affirm that states have the expertise, experience and tools to regulate sports betting as they have for more than a century,” the letter reads.
Yahoo Sports reported that the top prediction market sites in 2025 included Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, and Crypto.com.
Currently, sports betting is only legal in Mississippi when conducted within the confines of a brick-and-mortar casino. Efforts to pass legislation that would allow Mississippi to regulate online gambling, especially online sports betting, has failed in recent years, including during this year’s legislative session.
This session, State Rep. Casey Eure (R) introduced a bill that proposed a 22% tax on mobile sports betting, among other provisions. His bill also included a tax break for casinos and would have used the anticipated $50 million in mobile sports betting tax revenue to strengthen the state’s retirement system to address existing unfunded liabilities. The bill did not make it out of the Senate Gaming Committee. Senate Chair David Blount (D) contended that the bill’s casino tax cut would have caused the state to lose out on potential gambling tax revenue, with mobile sports betting unable to fill that void.
“The bigger issue is that mobile sports betting is already taking place in Mississippi just in an illegal market with no protections, no age restrictions, and no benefit to the state, including no tax revenue,” Eure told Magnolia Tribune on Monday. “The Mississippi House of Representatives has passed legislation multiple times to address this and regulate it while keeping that revenue here, but it has yet to be taken up in the Mississippi Senate by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann (R).”
Eure said lawmakers also had an opportunity this legislative session to address the federal market and put guardrails in place, and the Senate chose not to act.
“Legalizing mobile sports betting would allow for enforceable age restrictions, strong consumer protections, and safeguards against addiction while bringing this activity into a regulated market that actually benefits Mississippi,” Eure said.
Jeremy Pittari
