Sweepstakes casinos can continue operating in Mississippi after a bill to ban them died on March 31. Earlier this year, the state’s Senate became the first legislative chamber to pass a ban on the social gaming platforms. However, the House derailed the Senate’s plan by amending the bill to authorize mobile sports betting, a topic the two chambers have long disagreed upon.
Retail sports betting is legal in Mississippi, but efforts to expand that to include mobile betting haven’t borne fruit. House Representatives wouldn’t pass the sweeps ban unless they got their way on the mobile betting issue, but the Senate refused to budge. That impasse has given the sweepstakes casinos a reprieve.
The bill’s failure will be welcome news for many Mississippi online casino lovers. Casino gaming in the state is in a similar boat to sports betting, with numerous retail casinos but no legal option to wager real money over the internet.
Sweepstakes casinos, which use play money and offer prizes under federal sweepstakes law, have become a top alternative to real-money online casinos in many states without legal iGaming, such as Mississippi. It should be noted that although this bill has died, regulatory action against sweepstakes casinos in Mississippi remains a possibility. That is an approach that some other states, such as Maryland, have taken. But for now, sweepstakes casinos remain a legal and accessible option for players in Mississippi seeking an online gaming alternative.
Bill dies in conference committee
In February, SB2510 passed unanimously in the Senate by a 51-0 vote. However, when it crossed over, House Gaming Committee Chairman Rep. Casey Eure added provisions from a failed sports betting bill passed in the House but died in the Senate. The House then approved the amended version and returned it to the Senate.
The Senate did not accept the amendments and called for a conference committee to negotiate a compromise. Among the committee members were Rep. Eure and Sen. David Blount, a co-sponsor of SB2510 and chairman of the Senate Gaming Committee, which had previously rejected Eure’s mobile sports betting bill. The two chambers remain divided on the issue. The House advocates for mobile sports betting as a revenue generator while the Senate opposes it due to concerns over its impact on retail casinos.
This disagreement ultimately led to the failure of SB2510. The conference committee failed to reach a resolution before the March 31. That’s the deadline for filing conference reports on general bills and constitutional amendments.
A small victory for sweeps casinos
The failure of SB2510 marks a small but welcome victory for sweepstakes casinos and the Social and Promotional Games Association (SPGA), a trade group advocating for social gaming platforms. Since the beginning of the year, these platforms have faced growing scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in several states. That includes Connecticut, Maryland, and New York.
As a result, many sweepstakes casinos have ceased operations in those states. For example, New York witnessed a mass exodus of social gaming platforms between March 26 and 28. That was just over a week after a bill to ban them advanced from a Senate committee. Similar bills are active in the Maryland and Connecticut legislatures. At the same time, the gaming regulators from those two states have actively issued cease-and-desist letters to sweepstakes casinos.
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