
Mississippi’s first full month of wagering on sporting events generated $660,000 in revenue for the state’s highways and bridges.
Kathy Waterbury, a spokesperson for the Department Revenue, said Mississippi casinos saw customers wager $5.5 million on sporting events, resulting in $660,000 in revenue for the state.
Mississippi was one of the first states to allow sports book betting after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law earlier this year that essentially prohibited sports wagering on sporting events in all states except Nevada. Estimates of how much revenue would be generated for the state from sports wagering varied greatly, with some estimating as much as $35 million, but most officials conceding it would be less than $10 million annually.
In August, a few of the state’s 28 casinos were offering opportunities to wager on sporting events and it generated $54,000 in revenue for the state. With 21 of the 28 casinos now offering wagering on sporting events, the total shot up dramatically in September. It is likely that in the coming months additional Mississippi casinos will be taking bets on sporting events.
In an August special session, legislators opted to earmark the sports book betting revenue for state highway and bridge maintenance, as well as revenue generated from a lottery that was approved in the same special session. Any lottery revenue above $80 million annually will be used for education purposes.
After 10 years, the lottery and sports betting revenue – according to the bill passed by legislators in the special session – will divert from transportation to the general fund to be divvied up by education, public health, law enforcement and other services.
It is estimated that it will take at least a year to enact a lottery in the state.
Overall, state revenue collections for the general fund for the month of September were slightly up, according to the monthly revenue report released by the staff of the Legislative Budget Committee.
Through September, the third month of the fiscal year, revenue collections are up $22.1 million or 1.83 percent over collections for the same period last year. Collections are $45.4 million or 3.8 percent above the official estimate that legislators used during the 2018 session to craft the current budget.
If revenue falls below the estimate, the governor and or the Legislature must make mid-year budget cuts or dip into the state’s reserve funds.
Almost all revenue categories, ranging from sales tax to income tax to casino gambling taxes are up year over year. The noticeable exception is the corporate tax revenue, which is down $4.6 million or 4.8 percent for the first three months of the current fiscal year.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.