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Mississippi has an exceptionally long and storied history in gambling. The modern form of poker was born along the shores of its namesake river. Its most-famous writer took his pen name from a riverboat expression.

As it stands today, Mississippi hosts two of the more prominent locations for gambling in the South, Biloxi and Tunica, and Vicksburg is a destination in its own right as well.

It is also one of the states that pre-emptively passed legislation to allow sports betting should the federal ban against it be overturned. Sports betting launched in the state on Aug. 1. There are brick and mortar betting facilities and plans to offer on-site mobile betting. There are no plans for statewide mobile wagering.

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Currently, there are 23 operational sportsbooks at commercial casinos in Mississippi:

• 1st Jackpot Casino Tunica
• Ameristar Casino Hotel
• Beau Rivage
• Boomtown Casino Biloxi
• Fitzgerald’s Tunica
• Gold Strike Tunica
• Golden Nugget Biloxi
• Hard Rock Casino Biloxi
• Harlow’s Casino Resort
• Harrah’s Gulf Coast
• Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast
• Hollywood Casino Tunica
• IP Casino Biloxi
• Island View Casino
• Isle of Capri
• Magnolia Bluffs Casino
• Palace Casino
• Riverwalk Casino Hotel
• Sam’s Town Tunica
• Scarlet Pearl Casino Resort
• Silver Slipper Casino
• Treasure Bay Casino
• WaterView Casino and Hotel

Additionally, the Choctaw Tribe of Mississippi launched the first-ever tribal sportsbook outside of Nevada. The tribe launched sports betting at Pearl River Resort in central Mississippi. There is currently a book on the property. Additionally, they plan to introduce mobile betting on property.

Online gambling

Online gambling in Mississippi falls into the gray area in which many states find themselves. There are no specific laws for or against online gambling in Mississippi. However, players are advised to err on the side of caution and not play online in Mississippi. Relying on correct interpretations of law from law enforcement and juries is not a risk worth taking.

Mississippi state lottery

In a special session on Aug. 28, the Mississippi House finally passed a bill to create a state lottery by a vote of 58 to 54. The lottery should be operational within about a year. Prior to this law, Mississippi was one of six states without a lottery.

Gov. Phil Bryant had been pushing lawmakers for a state lottery, noting the revenue generated would help repair the state’s deteriorating highways and bridges. Additionally, Mississippi residents are currently playing the lottery in neighboring states. Bringing the lottery in-state could capture that audience and generate an estimated tens of millions of dollars annually for Mississippi.

Social casino options

With such a large number of casinos in the state, it is not surprising to find several casinos with their own social casinos. In fact, nine of Mississippi’s properties have their own social casino component. They are:

• Three Caesars properties
  • Harrah’s Gulf Coast
  • Horseshoe Tunica
  • Tunica Roadhouse
• Three Penn National Gaming properties
  • Hollywood Gulf Coast
  • Hollywood Tunica
  • Boomtown Biloxi
• Two Eldorado Resorts properties
  • Isle of Capri Lula
  • Lady Luck Vicksburg
• Riverwalk Casino Hotel

At any rate, these branded social outlets allow customers and potential customers to try some of the games they will see at the resident properties. All the typical social casino sites, such as Double Down, Zynga, and Slotomania, are available to Mississippi residents.

Mississippi residents also have an excellent opportunity with regard to MyVegas, the MGM Resorts site that provides real-world comps for social play. Gold Strike in Tunica and Beau Rivage in Biloxi are both partners with MyVegas, meaning Mississippi residents and visitors can redeem their loyalty points at both.

State casino operator history

Mississippi’s history with gambling stretches back hundreds of years. Native Americans engaged in sports betting prior to the arrival of European settlers. Under Spanish rule, the first horse racing track in Mississippi, the Fleetfield Race Track, was established in 1795 in Natchez.

Gambling came easy to the state, at least in the early days, due to its geographic advantages. The Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River meant people and money from many parts of the world were in transit in the area. Unlike gambling destinations like Las Vegas or Atlantic City, where people travel explicitly to gamble, patrons of gambling venues in Mississippi were usually just passing through.

Legal gambling in Mississippi persisted into statehood. The area along the coast became known as The Strip. Along with the gambling, it brought headlining acts like Elvis Presley and HankWilliams to the region. The road along the waterline, US 90, was one of the first roads widened to four lanes in the country, due to the traffic concerns.

However, in 1950, things changed drastically. A group of ministers from the Gulf Coast region, calling themselves the Biloxi Protestant Ministerial Association, began meeting with their congregants and others about the dangers of gambling and its ill effects on the home lives of the people in Mississippi. Citing the Mississippi Law Code of 1942, the group began running advertisements in local papers to outline how the operation of gambling machines was in violation of the law.

Concurrently, the US Senate’s Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce was investigating casinos around the country as sources of criminal business. This committee was led by Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and would eventually be known as the Kefauver Committee. Its effects on organized crime in the country were far-reaching, but locally, the minister group used the proceedings to draw greater attention to the unsavory aspects of gambling.

As a result, most of the slot machines were confiscated, and gambling was forced underground. There were clubs that continued to operate for the next 19 years, but the devastation of Hurricane Camille in 1969 was the coup de grace for both the gambling and tourist industries along the coast. Both the region’s and the state’s economies wasted away.

After 21 years of decline, the state legislature had enough. In 1990, the governing body passed the Mississippi Gaming Control Act, which allowed casino gambling in Mississippi counties along the Gulf Coast or the Mississippi River. The legal situation was also buoyed by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which allowed federally recognized Native American tribes to construct and operate casinos on tribal lands.

As a result, there are 29 casinos operating in seven Mississippi counties. The highest concentrations of these properties are in and around the cities of Biloxi, Tunica, and Vicksburg. Two of the leading gaming companies in the world – MGM Resorts and Caesars – have multiple operations in Mississippi. Until Florida allowed casinos to open, the only real competition in the region was in New Orleans.

The bottom line is that Mississippi is a major gambling locale in the US and will likely continue to be so, even with more states getting into the gambling market.

Prominent land-based casinos

*Slots (S), Craps (C), Blackjack (BJ), Roulette (R), Baccarat (B), Poker (P), Mini-Baccarat (MBac), Pai Gow Poker (PGP), Pai Gow Tiles (PGT), Let It Ride (LR), Caribbean Stud Poker (CS), Crazy 4 Poker (C4), 3 Card Poker (3C), 4 Card Poker (4C), Ultimate Texas Hold’em (UTH), High Card Flush (HCF), Mississippi Stud (MS), Texas Hold’em Bonus (THB), Big Six Wheel (B6), Bingo (BI), Keno (K), Off-track Betting (OTB), Casino War (CW), Money Wheel (MW), Spanish 21 (S21), Sic Bo (SB), Wheel of Fortune (WF)

State legal environment

• • Year Mississippi Regulated Gambling: Casinos (1990), Bingo (1992)
  • Estimated Tax Revenue from Gambling: $140 million
  • Estimated Gambling Revenue: $2.1 billion
  • Mississippi Gambling Age: 18 for bingo, 21 for casinos

• Smoking ban: Mississippi does not have a statewide smoking ban
• Mississippi Online gambling: All forms of online gambling are illegal in Mississippi.

Despite being a conservative state in the South, there are plenty of Mississippi casinos and gambling for players to enjoy. It has a history of being the main spot for gamblers in the region. This dates back to 1800’s when riverboat casinos would venture into the Mississippi River full of players. As the state developed, anti-gambling interests put an end to these types of excursions. Mississippi gambling went underground until the state legalized casino resorts in the 1990’s.

The only other form of legalized gambling beyond Mississippi casinos is charity bingo. There is no racing industry in the state. Mississippi is one of just six states in the country without a state lottery.

Paying Gambling Taxes in Mississippi

Have you won any money from gambling in the past year? Remember you have to report your winnings to the IRS. Learn how to pay your gambling taxes with our exclusive Gambling Taxes Guide.

Mississippi Casinos Map & Guide

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• Hard Rock
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Types of Mississippi Online Gambling Allowed

No forms of legal Mississippi online gambling in the state. The state does not have a racing industry so any off-track betting apps are illegal. There is no lottery to sell tickets over the Internet.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood declared daily fantasy sports sites to be illegal gambling. Sites like DraftKings and FanDuel remained in the state for a few weeks but left the market in February 2016.

Mississippi Rep. Bobby Moak introduced a bill that would have legalized online gambling in the state. His first attempt was in 2012. The bill is called the Mississippi Lawful Internet Gaming Act. The bill would have allowed online casinos and poker games to be offered by licensed Mississippi casinos. The bill failed in 2012, as well as the following three years.

Types of Live Mississippi Gambling

• Slots: Yes
• Blackjack: Yes
• Poker: Yes
• Craps/Roulette: Yes
• Horses: No
• Lottery: No

There are only two types of legal Mississippi gambling. Charities may hold bingo games, sell raffle tickets and pull-tabs. This is as close to a lottery as it gets in Mississippi.

Mississippi casinos are legal in jurisdictions that vote to approve them through local referendums. Casinos in Mississippi must be on riverboats in the water with the exception of the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina changed how boats on the ocean operate after the entire industry was wiped out. Casinos on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi may be located within 800 feet of the water.

Mississippi casinos offer all the popular casino games one would find in a typical gaming jurisdiction. Craps, roulette, slots, video poker, live poker rooms, and house-banked card games are the common forms of gambling found in Mississippi casinos. Proprietary games like Three Card Poker, Four Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mississippi Stud, and Caribbean Stud Poker are among the favorites of locals.

Mississippi Gambling Laws

Mississippi gambling laws prohibit almost all forms of gambling. If there is an element of chance, the game is likely illegal. Sports pools are not permitted, neither are many skill games that involve paying to play, unless exempted under the Mississippi casino or charity laws. Most gambling offenses are a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500 for the first offense. Subsequent offenses may become felonies.

Mississippi gambling laws void all gambling contracts. Losers, or their families, are permitted to sue the winner if money is lost through an illegal gambling scheme. This is called a qui tam law.

The minimum gambling age in Mississippi is 21 years casino players, while the minimum age for charity gambling is 18 years.

List of Mississippi Casinos

There are charities throughout the state that offers bingo and raffles. Any serious gambling must take place at any of the 28 Mississippi casinos located throughout the state. Use our interactive Mississippi casinos map, or the table below, to get the Mississippi casino locations.

History of Mississippi Gambling

While there is little in the way of gambling these days, that was not always the case. Horse racing was once legal in Mississippi before it became a state. The Fleetfield Race Track opened in Natchez in 1795. Gulf Coast and Mississippi River resorts offered gambling options in the 1800’s. This included riverboat excursions that today’s casinos attempt to mimic in some capacity.

This continued through the early and mid-1900’s. Broadwater Resort opened in 1938 as a legal casino along the Biloxi/Gulfport border. It catered to high rollers. Broadwater would later become President Casino when casinos became legal again before it went bankrupt. The boat and hotel were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Casinos were outlawed in the 1950’s after a movement from conservatives and representatives of Keesler Air Force Base lobbied to put an end to it. All that did was make gambling go underground. In 1969, Hurricane Camille destroyed the Gulf Coast and with it the illegal gambling industry.

Casino gambling was approved by voters in 1990 to help stimulate the depressed economies of the Gulf Coast and Tunica. Hancock and HamiltonCounty voters were the first to approve casinos at a local level. The first casinos returned to the Gulf Coast in 1992 after a 23-year absence. This time, they were fully licensed and legal.

The Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes. Several storms battered the ships along U.S. 90 in Biloxi, Gulfport, and Bay St. Louis, causing damage to the properties. Some decided that insurance was no longer an option and took the chance a storm would not destroy the resorts.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed every oceanside casino except for the Imperial Palace, which was docked in the Back Bay. Lawmakers decided to permit ships to move to land for reconstruction. Casinos today must be within 800 feet of the shoreline. This does not apply to lakes and rivers in Mississippi. Those gaming establishments must remain on boats but are not required to leave the dock.

Mississippi does not have a statewide smoking ban. Mississippi casinos may allow smoking anywhere they wish. Palace Casino decided to break from this tradition in 2011 when it banned smoking in the entire casino. It was the first nonsmoking casino in the region to do so at the time. It was thought to be the only casino in the country that banned smoking when not forced to do so by state law. Palace Casino remains the only casino in Mississippi that bans smoking. Harrah’s New Orleans no longer permits smoking in its casino. This was not voluntary. It was forced to do so by the New Orleans City Council.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced in January 2016 that daily fantasy sports are illegal in the state. Hood noted at the time that “any person shall encourage promote or play at any game, play or amusement … for money or another valuable thing…” Skill is an irrelevant matter as it pertains to Mississippi law, according to Hood. Daily fantasy sports sites remained on the market for weeks after this decision. DraftKings and FanDuel, the two largest companies in the industry, quietly left the state in February 2016.

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Mississippi Casinos & Gambling FAQ

Mississippi is one of just six states that do not have a state lottery.

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Horseracing is not legal in the state.

No, according to the state attorney general. Many sites ignored this opinion and continue to accept players from Mississippi. DraftKings and FanDuel left the market.

There is no statewide smoking ban in Mississippi for any business. Palace Casino voluntarily banned smoking in 2011.

Yes, there are currently 28 casinos in Mississippi.

The minimum Mississippi gambling age is 21 years for casino players and 18 years for charity gambling.

Play Mississippi Casino Online Play

Slots, video poker, live poker, craps, roulette, blackjack, Mississippi Stud, Caribbean Stud, Three Card Poker, Four Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Texas Hold’em Bonus, baccarat, and Pai Gow Poker are among the many games that are permitted in Mississippi casinos.