Mississippi Sees Monthly Sports Betting Record in January

Like Indiana, Mississippi sports betting also enters the new year with a record-setting handle of $67.7 million for the month of January.

According to the state report released by the Mississippi Gaming Commission, last month’s figure represented a 22.4% increase from December’s handle ($55.3 million) and $6.5 million more than the previous best ($61.2 million) recorded in October 2020. Last month’s total was also a 50% increase year-over-year, or more precisely, 49.8% higher than January 2020’s handle of $45.2 million.

$67.7 Million is Good, But Not Good Enough!

Though the Magnolia State is not ranked among the biggest sports betting markets like New Jersey, Nevada, and Indiana, January proved to be a great month for Mississippi sports betting.

However, it is still by no means good enough when compared to these big markets, and even Tennessee, which recently launched its online-only sports betting market. Indiana posted nearly $350 million of sports betting handle for this month. Last December, New Jersey almost reached $1 billion worth of sports betting handle, and Nevada recorded a handle of almost $590 million. With the notable exception of Nevada, all the flourishing sports betting markets have one common factor – mobile betting – which has been consecutively snowballing their monthly handles throughout 2020.

Though mobile sports betting is available in Mississippi, it is restricted within the premises of retail sports betting venues. In other words, there is no statewide mobile betting for customers whose counterparts in other states have been placing bets from the comforts of their homes. Inevitably, the restriction has its impacts on the overall sports betting handle, as well as the revenues, in the Magnolia State.

Unfortunately, the existing requirement for customers to visit a Mississippi casino to place an online bet appears to remain unchanged for a while. A recent effort to expand Mississippi sports betting was promptly dashed when two proposals in the state Senate, SB 2732 and SB 2396, failed to get a full vote during this session. Both bills died in committee earlier this month.

Still Great News for Mississippi

Although the sports betting handle for Mississippi fell short compared to other states, it is still welcome news.

Thanks to a whopping 13.46% win rate, Mississippi sportsbooks brought in nearly $9.1 million in sports betting revenue, representing a 17.4% increase from December’s $7.8 million. This is also the second-best in Mississippi sports betting history since its launch in August 2018, only being beaten by the $12.3 million recorded by the state’s sportsbooks in October 2019. The year-over-year revenue increase is no less phenomenal as Mississippi sportsbooks brought in almost double, or 96.5%, from last January’s $4.6 million.

Mixed Results Overall

Although sports betting figures were on the up, the Mississippi gaming market saw mixed results in Januaray overall.

The total slots drop was around $2 billion, representing an increase from December’s $1.8 billion and up 11.5% from last January. Slot revenue for January was almost $154 million. The table games drop also increased in January, representing 8% from December’s $142 million to $153.4 million. However, it shrunk 5.1% in a year-to-year comparison. In January 2020, Mississippi table games brought in $161.7 million in the handle.