Mississippi Introduces Legislation to Allow Sports Betting

Mississippi has become the latest state to introduce legislation that would permit sports betting.

House Bill 806, introduced Wednesday, is sponsored by Democrat state rep. Chuck Espy.

Currently the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule on a New Jersey challenge of the Bradley Act, or PASPA, a federal law banning sports betting in all but a handful of states.

Espy’s measure would permit legalized sports wagering should the Court assert it is permissible.

“I characterize this case as “sleeping giant” that nobody is talking about,” Dan Wallach, a shareholder and gaming lawyer with Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said last week at the Southern Gaming Summit in Biloxi.

“The easy part is the decriminalizing; the hard part is to say they can do it only at casinos,” said Allen Godfrey, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Association. “Now we know what it will take to legalize sports betting.”

“I don’t know that it would be an expansion of gaming because it would be something that would be contained at the current casinos,” said Godfrey. “The casinos don’t make a lot of money off the sports betting, but it will draw more players to the casinos, especially at times when there’s an event like the NCAA basketball tournament or World Cup. That would bring a lot more traffic to the casinos mid-week, which is when they’re hurting for players.

“With the casino sports betting, you also also don’t have problems with underage betting and compulsive gamblers, because casinos already have steps in place to take care of those issues.”

 While Mississippi does not host any professional sports franchises, it is home to two of the top College Football teams in the nation.

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com