The Mississippi Legislature tried to protect the state’s casino industry when sports betting first became the rage.
Six years ago, it legalized the wagering but said it could only be done at “sportsbooks” located on the premises of a casino.
Of course, that didn’t work. People living in Mississippi found ways to dodge being blocked from online sportsbooks, finding apps and websites that allowed them to wager from their smartphones or computers, or they found surrogates in states without this restriction to place the bets for them. It’s estimated that illegal sports betting in Mississippi totaled $3 billion last year.
A Mississippi House bill wants the state to get a cut of that action, and the casinos, too. It would require online sportsbooks such as DraftKings or FanDuel to partner with a physical casino in Mississippi — obviously for a price to be negotiated between the two — before allowing customers from this state to use them.
Certainly, the casinos have invested heavily in Mississippi, not only with their gambling halls but the hotels, restaurants, golf courses and other amenities they have been required to build in order to get their licenses to operate. But what’s with the selective protectionism?
The Legislature, when it put Mississippi into the lottery business, sure wasn’t worried about protecting casinos from state-operated competition. Nor was it worried when it legalized casinos about protecting the other businesses that might suffer because their customers’ discretionary income was being eaten up by slot machines and blackjack tables.
Protectionism, in whatever form it is implemented, has one certain result. It drives up costs for the consumer. If these online sportsbooks partner with casinos, the sportsbooks aren’t going to just willingly take a cut in their profits. They are going to try to figure out how to pass that “protection fee” onto the gamblers.
The proliferation of gambling in this state and nation has been detrimental in many ways. It preys on people’s weaknesses and can be financially crushing. But that die has been cast, and there’s no chance of going back to the days when betting was less prevalent because it was not so heavily marketed and mostly illegal.
If, however, you are going to have legal betting, the state should not try to decide which operators benefit the most financially from it. It should take its cut, stand back and let the market decide the winners and the losers.
