Minnesota and Mississippi Sports Betting Failures

Minnesota and Mississippi Sports betting will have to wait at least another year. It was thought that Minnesota could get a bill through the legislature to legalize online sports betting in 2024 but that is not going to happen and Mississippi failed in their efforts to get online sports betting legalized. House File 2000 in Minnesota passed through the House Taxes Committee and goes next to the House Ways and Means Committee but some committee members, including Rep. Greg Davids said the bill will not pass. HF 2000 would tax online sports betting at 20% and the state’s 11 tribes would be granted licenses to offer legal sports betting apps. The bill would also legalize daily fantasy sports sites and the tax, rate for those sites would be 10%.

Check out the latest sports betting odds right now at Caesars.

It was expected that the Minnesota bill would send about $40 million worth of tax revenue to the state’s charities over the next few years, but some people don’t believe the money is enough. Rep. Kristin Robbins, a Republican said the money would take years to go to where it needs to go.

The news wasn’t any better in Mississippi, as a bill to legalize online sports betting failed.  Mississippi does have retail sports betting but it does not yet have legalized online sports betting. House Bill 774 would have changed that and allowed about 30 sports betting apps, which would have been associated with the local casinos. The tax rate would have been 12%.

The bill passed the House but the bill was changed in the Senate and then stalled in the conference committee. Mississippi legislators have been trying for some time to get online sports betting in the state, but they have fallen short each time. Mississippi joins the list of states that tried to get online sports betting legalized in 2024 but failed.  Georgia was another state that hoped to have some sort of legalized online sports betting in 2024, but no bill was able to make it through the state legislature.

Online sports betting is currently legal in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Wyoming. States where they have sports betting only in retail locations include Delaware, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. The states where sports betting is illegal are California, Texas, Idaho, Utah, Minnesota, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Alaska and Hawaii. 

The legislative efforts in states like California and Texas have so far fallen short. Those two states account for almost a quarter of the population in the United States so online sports betting could still see a major expansion in future years.Check out the latest sports betting odds right now at Caesars.