Looks like lawmakers in Jackson are set to take their annual look at legalizing statewide mobile sports wagering.
At least three bills have now been filed in the Mississippi legislature that would expand legalized sports betting beyond the borders of brick-and-mortar casino properties.
- Mississippi lawmakers have introduced multiple bills to legalize statewide mobile sports betting.
- The latest Senate bill would tax online sports betting revenue at 12% and require statewide mobile wagering to launch by Jan. 9, 2027.
- Despite years of debate and study, Mississippi has so far failed to pass mobile betting legislation due to casino industry concerns and limited legislative time.
The most recently introduced legislative proposal is Democratic Sen. Juan Barnett's Senate Bill 2249, which was referred to the chamber's gaming committee on Wednesday.
Barnett’s proposed "Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act" would legalize online betting on sports and horse racing anywhere in Mississippi, rather than just at casinos, so long as the bets are placed with a licensed platform.
Those platforms would have to partner with licensed casino operators, which would be limited to two partners apiece for online sports betting and horse race wagering. Online sports betting revenue would be subject to a 12% tax rate.
Under the provisions of the bill, the money raised by online sports betting would go to a new "Mississippi HOPE Scholarship Program," which will "prioritize financial support for students from underserved communities to remove economic barriers to higher education."
The bill also proposes that statewide online sports betting start in Mississippi no later than Jan. 9, 2027.
Looks like Mississippi's last, best chance at legalizing statewide online sports betting this year is dead, along with the proposed ban on sweepstakes casinos to which House lawmakers tried to attach OSB: pic.twitter.com/DWLgRJxxew
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) April 1, 2025
There are two other bills in the Mississippi House that would authorize statewide mobile sports wagering as well, H.B. 297 and H.B. 519. Those are in addition to an anti-sweepstakes bill filed in the state Senate, S.B. 2104.
Beyond brick-and-mortar
The introduction of all that legislation suggests that lawmakers in Mississippi will again spend some time pondering whether the state needs to expand its legal sports betting scene.
State-regulated Mississippi sports betting has been restricted to brick-and-mortar casino properties since legalized sports wagering began in 2018.
There is technically online sports betting that's authorized in the state, but it can only be done while on those casino properties. For example: a bettor could use BetMGM, but only while at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi.
Mississippi's “Mobile-Online Sports Betting Task Force" just heard from @GeoComply's John Pappas that the company identified and helped block more than 1.72M attempts in the southern state to use legal online sportsbooks elsewhere since the start of the football season. pic.twitter.com/XREf2ZAgfP
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) October 24, 2023
As a result, there is an annual debate in Jackson about authorizing statewide mobile wagering. There was even a “Mobile-Online Sports Betting Task Force” formed in 2023 to study the possibility.
Mississippi lawmakers, however, have been unable to get a mobile betting bill across the finish line in the legislature. That is partly due to concern among brick-and-mortar casino operators that statewide online sports betting could steal some of the business they're currently seeing.
There has, however, been a major development since last year's debate about statewide online sports betting in Mississippi: the rise of online sports betting via federally regulated prediction markets.
Those exchanges are now offering sports event contracts for trading in all 50 U.S. states, Mississippi included, meaning there is technically a form of legal sports betting already taking place in the southern state. Whether that's enough to persuade some Mississippi lawmakers to authorize state-regulated online sportsbooks remains to be seen.
At any rate, the Mississippi legislature only has a finite amount of time to deal with any piece of legislation. The last scheduled day of the 2026 session is Apr. 5, and there are several other legislative deadlines that any bill must meet well before then.
