Mississippi Fails To Approve Legalized Online Gambling Bill

A recent Gambling Compliance report predicted that at least 10 US states would seek to authorize or expand online gambling this year, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania.
“In 2013, 10 states considered legislation that would legalize online casino-style gambling, which was a historic high. This year is shaping up to be at least as busy,” explained the group’s research director, Chris Krafcik.
Last Tuesday, however, Mississippi state legislatures struck down a bill entitled ‘the Mississippi Lawful Internet Gaming Act of 2014’, which would have allowed land-based casinos to offer legalized Internet gambling to state residents. The latest move by anti-online gambling proponents marks three consecutive years that an internet casino bill introduced by Representative Bobby Moak has died in The Magnolia State.
In the absence of a Federal Online Gambling Bill to regulate consistent laws across all states, individual states have been forced to introduce their own online gambling laws and seek intratstate solutions within their own boundaries. So far, however, just three of the USA’s fifty states offer legalized online gambling, namely Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey, although Nevada is the only state to limit itself to just online poker and sports betting.  Delaware and New Jersey residents, on the other hand, are permitted to also play casinos games.
Nevertheless, USA’s fledgling online gambling industry faces considerable challenges as many states have too small populations to support a potentially viable internet gambling market. In addition, opposition to legalized online gambling on either a state or federal level has been championed by Las Vegas Sands billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and his advocacy group, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling. Adelson has called internet gambling “a toxin which all good people ought to resist,” while his opposition group see it as their duty to protect the middle classes from “spiraling debt and job losses” which they believe would occur as a result of legalized online gambling.