Online sports betting is poised to become legal and regulated in Mississippi. Interestingly, the reasons given by many of our legislators for legalizing something that can be incredibly destructive are the same reasons many of us believe illicit drugs should be legalized and regulated.
The reasoning works like this: First, sports betting is happening all over Mississippi all the time, even though it’s illegal. This is true. The same is true of illicit drug use. We’ve spent over 100 years trying to force people not to use certain drugs, and instead of winning that war, we have illicit drugs that are cheaper, more potent, and more easily accessible than ever. A few taps of a phone screen can get an illicit drug delivered to your door. Making an activity illegal does not stop people from engaging in it.
Second, legalizing online sports betting would allow us to regulate the market and enforce consumer protections. The same is true of illicit drug markets. It is a common mistake to think that the strongest form of regulation is a blanket ban. In reality, the banned market moves underground into a complete free-for-all where 15-year-olds can buy fentanyl. Just like legalizing online sports betting is the only way to regulate that industry, legalizing the market for drugs is the only way to regulate this one. The stakes are actually far higher for drugs because the vast majority of overdose deaths are caused by the lack of quality control in the underground market.
Third, legalizing online sports betting would allow us to tax it. At the risk of stating the obvious, you can’t tax something that’s illegal. The underground drug market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars yearly, but not a dime of that is collected as taxes. The only way we get tax dollars from sports betting is to legalize it. The only way we get tax dollars from the money spent on drugs is to make that transaction legal and regulated.
Fourth, the revenue from sports betting would be directed to a deeply broken PERS system to help the state meet its retirement promises to teachers, law enforcement, etc. The argument that legal sports betting will be a significant benefit to PERS has been so deeply ingrained in this policy discussion that I’ve heard it called “the PERS vote” rather than “the sports betting vote.” Moving drug markets into legal regulation would give us another significant new revenue stream that could be used to further shore up PERS or address one of the many other challenges Mississippi faces.
Fifth and most importantly for our comparison to drugs, leaders are making a distinction between the moral or spiritual concerns they have about sports betting and their belief that it should still be legal. It seems we recognize that personal and religious convictions shouldn’t necessarily dictate the law. Everyone knows that sports betting can be addictive. It can absolutely wreck lives, marriages, families, and futures. But instead of ending the conversation there, we’re weighing the cost of allowing adults to make their own choice about a risky activity against the benefits of regulation, revenue, and fixing PERS. Why not also consider legalizing another activity that can be addictive and destructive, but would be far less deadly and harmful if it were regulated, age-restricted, quality-controlled, and the tax revenue used for good?
Sports betting and drug use are not the same, and they need different regulations to best reduce the harm posed by their unique risks. But both are risky activities that many Mississippians engage in, and they need to be regulated and age-restricted from both public health and public safety standpoints. The wild west of underground markets only increases the risk on both fronts.
I personally am uncomfortable with legal sports betting and legal drugs. But good policy can be uncomfortable, especially when it involves activities about which we have strong moral, religious, or personal opinions. Right now, the only people winning from keeping the betting and drug markets underground are the people raking in cash with no accountability.
We have an opportunity to take both of these markets out of the hands of cartels and other bad actors breaking the law, and move them into the light of rules, regulations, age restrictions, and revenue generation. Regulating reality will move Mississippi forward.
Christina Dent is the founder of the nonprofit End It For Good and author of the award-winning book Curious. She was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and still lives in the metro area with her husband and sons.
