Leaders in the Mississippi House of Representatives are once again rolling the dice to bring mobile sports betting to a state that has had legal casinos for more than three decades and a lottery for over five years, but has historically lacked the support to allow people to place wagers on sporting events from their phones freely.
House Bill 1581, or the “Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act,” was introduced by House Gaming Chair Casey Eure, R-Saucier, and made it through his committee earlier this week. On Wednesday, the full chamber voted 85-31 to send it to the Senate.
Similar to a bill Eure filed a year ago – one that overwhelmingly passed the House but was killed in the Senate – this year’s Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act would legalize mobile sports betting while requiring online gaming platforms like DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM, among others, to partner with a Mississippi casino before opening their apps to residents. The requirement is intended to ease concerns within the casino industry that mobile sports betting will negatively impact existing brick-and-mortar sportsbooks.
To further ease some casinos’ concerns, the first $6 million in mobile sports betting revenue each year for the first five years would be reserved to compensate casinos that lose retail sports wagering revenue after mobile wagering begins.
The remaining revenue after the first $6 million per year during the initial five years would go to the Mississippi Public Employees’ Retirement System. After that period, all mobile sports betting revenue would go to PERS. An amendment approved on the House floor could eventually require a $600 million transfer from the state’s Capital Expense Fund to help strengthen the system once certain pension funding conditions are met. PERS faces a multi-billion-dollar unfunded liability, and lawmakers in both chambers are exploring ways to address it. Last month, the Senate passed a bill providing $1 billion over the next decade, primarily through surplus general funds, while Eure’s bill would make gaming revenue part of the solution.
Eure has previously estimated that online betting would generate as much as $80 million in tax revenue annually. Neighboring states in Tennessee and Louisiana secured about $117 million and $90 million, respectively, in tax revenue from mobile sports betting in 2025.
Republican Speaker Jason White, who hinted before the session that a mobile sports betting bill would drop with tax revenue heading to PERS, was one of the yes votes on the measure on Wednesday. Since being elected speaker in 2024, White has consistently asserted that mobile sports betting is going to happen one way or another and Mississippi could capitalize on it by joining over half of states in legalization.
“That money will go elsewhere or into illegal dealers’ pockets instead of through normal channels where our gaming officials could regulate it,” White said during the 2025 session. “And we would at least see the benefit of our operators making money and Mississippians making it versus it hitting on the illegal market.”
In the Senate, a Republican-led bill recently passed to further prohibit online gambling with harsher penalties for illegal operators.
Senate Gaming Committee Chair David Blount, D-Jackson, has also continued to speak out against legalized mobile sports betting, arguing it does not promise to generate tourism or economic development and pointing to the recent rise of prediction markets. These are peer-to-peer betting platforms – apps where individuals bet against each other rather than against a traditional sportsbook – which have thrived under the Trump administration’s laxer regulatory environment. According to Blount, the administration has “essentially legalized mobile sports betting nationwide.”
“Where we are this year is very different than we were last year and that is with prediction markets – apps like Kalshi and Prize Picks. The current administration in Washington essentially legalized nationwide mobile gaming. They preempted the states,” Blount said.
He contends that mobile sports betting revenue would be well below projected since people can avoid the traditional sportsbook’s “house” model by using prediction markets, which the state has no control over.
“The result is that the states cannot tax and cannot regulate [prediction markets], and you’re going to see more and more people in this business moving from traditional betting apps to what are called prediction markets or future contracts,” Blount said.
Mississippi currently allows mobile sports betting only on casino grounds, meaning casino-run apps use geofences to ensure users are on casino property when placing bets.