HB254 The Mississippi Lawful Internet Gaming Act of 2013
Wednesday January 23, 2013 : MOAK TAKES ANOTHER RUN AT LEGALISING ONLINE GAMING IN MISSISSIPPI
5 percent tax on gross revenues proposed
Mississippi Representative Bobby Moak is not a man to give up easily, it appears. Undaunted by his failure to push through an intrastate online gambling legalization bill last year , he has presented HB254 The Mississippi Lawful Internet Gaming Act of 2013 to the state legislature.
There are few differences apparent in the new offering, which suggests that Mississippians (or their political representatives) determine which online gambling genres are acceptable, and how these might be regulated, licensed and (of course) taxed at a proposed 5 percent of gross revenues.
Logically, any games allowed in land casinos – such as poker, slots, video poker and table games – would be regarded as suitable for the online environment.
Online operators may find it a difficult market to break into if Moak has his way – licenses will be restricted to those companies already holding land licensing. It won't be cheap, either; for starters there's a $200,000 ‘application fee ‘and a licensing fee of $200,000 per annum. In addition, operators face the usual expenses of software certification, management and financial probity, geo-location and player ID precautions and monetary supervision.
The proposed tax windfall from online legalization is allocated equally to the Mississippi Gaming Commission for anti-illegal gambling activity and to general state funds.
The bill also deals with various measures against illegal online gambling that include stiff fines, imprisonment and forfeitures; domain seizures; internet cafe gambling bans, ISP blocking, and even punitive measures for developers of questionable and cheating software.
See the full details of the bill here:
http://index.ls.state.ms.us/isysnative/UzpcRG9jdW1lbnRzXDIwMTNcbm90ZGVhZFxoYlwwMjAwLTAyOTlcaGIwMjU0aW4ucGRm/hb0254in.pdf#xml=http://10.240.72.35/isysquery/irl473/1/hilite
Moak hopes to get the provisions of the bill implemented by July 2013.
