The Mississippi House has a MS sports betting bill ready to cross to the Senate, but the chairman of the Senate Gaming Committee has flatly refused to hear the bill. However, that is not the end of the issue, as a House procedural tactic has kept the bill alive.
Chamber Disputes
Republican Representative and House Gaming Chairman Casey Eure and Democratic Representative Jeffrey Hulum III are co-sponsors of House Bill 1302, also known as the “Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act.”
The bill was approved in the House by an 88-10 margin and incorporates many of the suggestions suggested by the Senate last year, including allowing casinos to partner with two sports betting platforms instead of one and eliminating credit cards as a funding source for sportsbook deposits.
Senate Opposition
The changes were implemented to facilitate cooperation from the Senate; however, that has not happened thanks to Senator David Blount, who chairs the Senate Gaming Committee and has refused to hear Eure’s bill. This lack of cooperation would effectively doom the bill and sports betting, at least for this year, but Eure is a savvy politician who knows his way around parliamentary procedures.
Instead of a standalone bill, Eure has inserted his sports betting bill in with Senate Bill 2381, also known as the Tidelands Act, one that is near and dear to Senator Blount. In other words, if Blount doesn’t hear the bill, he would not only quash sports betting but also the Tidelands Act that died last year as well.
“The Tidelands bill is critically important to the growth of the industry on the Gulf Coast, and it is supported by every single casino on the Gulf Coast, and mobile sports betting has half the casinos for it and half are against it,” said Blount, a Democrat from Jackson. “Every casino is for (tidelands reform) because it provides much-needed stability to the market, and until we restore that stability, and that means having the House pass a clean bill, it discourages increased investment on the Gulf Coast.”
Horse Trading
Should Blount not take up Senate Bill 2381, he will have effectively countered Eure’s procedural gambit, but in doing so, he would also euthanize his own interests and those of the entire Mississippi casino industry contained in the Tidelands Act.
“It’s a possibility (that tidelands will not get addressed this year if the Senate does not take up mobile sports betting), but the House’s position is on mobile sports betting,” Eure said. “We’re concerned about tidelands, but at this point, it’s all about negotiating. I didn’t kill Tidelands. I just passed Tideland’s.”
Secretary of State Michael Watson has long been a proponent of tidelands reforms, and he expressed his disappointment that Representative Eure inserted sports betting in the Tidelands Act as well.
“While I’m hopeful we can continue to further refine the legislation and get it over the finish line, I still don’t think the legislature has grasped the magnitude of the impact of doing nothing,” Watson said.
“I don’t think legislation should be something that’s traded,” Blount said. “I think each bill should be looked at on its own merits. If you think it’s a good bill, you should pass it, and if you think it’s a bad bill, certainly you have every right to oppose it, but to link bills together when the topics that are not related to each other, to me, is not the way the legislature should work.”
