The Mississippi House will try for the third year straight to legalize mobile sports betting with new provisions aimed at winning over Senate lawmakers who have opposed the measure, the House Gaming Committee Chairman said.

This year’s legislation — in a key change from last year’s proposal — would direct all state revenue from online betting to the state’s government pension system, Casey Eure, a Republican from Saucier who chairs House Gaming, told Mississippi Today.

The House and Senate are still at loggerheads over how to shore up the Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has unfunded liabilities of about $26 billion.

The new proposal will also contain other “compromises” for those who have previously opposed legalization.

The persistence of a thriving black market in Mississippi and an estimated tens of millions a year in tax revenue that legal sports betting could generate has prompted a fierce push from some lawmakers to legalize the practice.

“By legalizing mobile sports betting, we can eliminate much of the illegal market — including protecting underage bettors — and provide real consumer safeguards in a regulated environment,” Eure said. “This legislation will also give our brick-and-mortar casinos a new revenue stream to ensure their continued success, while the state revenue generated will help close the gap in funding for our public employees’ retirement system.”

The effort also has a strong and well-funded lobby from sports betting companies. But the legalization effort could again face significant headwinds, from skeptical state lawmakers in both parties and federal regulatory changes since the election of President Donald Trump.

Senate Gaming Chairman David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who has thus far opposed mobile sports betting legalization, told Mississippi Today he wouldn’t take a position on Eure’s bill until he read it. But he said directing the revenue to PERS wouldn’t be near enough to justify legalization.

“These are the same people who abolished the income tax last year, which generates more than $2 billion a year to the state budget. If we legalized mobile sports betting tomorrow, it would take more than 1,000 years to pay off the unfunded liability in the retirement system,” Blount said. “The amount of money that we’re talking about is infinitesimal compared to the $26 billion unfunded liability of the retirement system.”

Eure has said legalizing online betting could generate as much as $80 million a year in tax revenue. Blount said the estimates he’s seen max out at about $30 million. Either way, the total would not pay off the system’s unfunded liabilities in the near term.

The Senate has already sent the House a bill to put half-a-billion dollars of the state’s current surplus into PERS, in addition to putting $50 million a year over the next decade. House leaders have proposed a recurring revenue stream for PERS, either from the state lottery or by legalizing mobile sports betting.

Blount also pointed to the rise of “prediction markets,” exchanges where people bet on the outcomes of future events. These markets, dominated by platforms such as Kalshi, are different from traditional sports betting because traders set prices. Also, prediction markets try to make money by letting people trade against each other to reveal how likely an event is, while sports betting companies make money by setting odds so the bookmaker always takes a cut.

Under the Trump administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken a lax approach to regulating prediction markets, allowing platforms to expand their offerings in states around the country, including states such as Mississippi, where mobile sports betting remains illegal.

“Predictions markets have essentially legalized nationwide mobile betting,” Blount said. “Whatever amount of money was promised last year, that number is reduced, maybe greatly reduced. Because due to the actions of the current administration, no state can tax or regulate prediction markets, which are effectively gambling.”

Traditional sports betting giant DraftKings, which has lobbied Mississippi House Speaker Jason White to legalize online betting, launched its own prediction market product last month.

Two U.S. Senate committees could take up a bill later this month to establish new rules for the cryptocurrency industry, and some on Capitol Hill are pushing to include language that would tighten regulations on prediction markets.

In addition to the role PERS and prediction markets might play in the debate over mobile sports betting legalization in Mississippi, a proposal this year would likely need to assuage the concerns of lawmakers from districts with casinos. Some brick-and-mortar casinos have feared the legalization of online betting could undercut their profits.

To protect smaller casinos from revenue losses, Eure’s bill last year would create a pot of money that establishments could draw from for the first five years after online sports betting becomes legal. It also included safeguards to prevent people from placing bets with credit cards.

Eure still believes legalization would be an economic boon for Mississippi.

“I intend to pass it,” he said.