Mississippi group will study lottery but not take a stand

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS - Associated Press - Thursday, May 25, 2017

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A study group will gather facts about lotteries in other states but won’t make a recommendation either for or against creating a game of chance in Mississippi, its leader says.

“We are not looking for any particular outcome,” Republican state Rep. Richard Bennett of Long Beach said as the group met briefly Thursday at the Capitol. “We want to be as objective, independent, as possible.”

Mississippi is one of six states without a lottery. Efforts to create one have fizzled in the past two decades, usually with little debate in the Mississippi Legislature.

The issue gained fresh attention early this year when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said legislators should consider starting a lottery to generate new revenue. State tax collections have fallen short of expectations most months for the past year and a half, leading to multiple rounds of budget cuts.

Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn is a leader at a Baptist church in Clinton and opposes a lottery. But, he created the study group to examine how the games work in other states.

Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review did research showing how much money neighboring states collected after prizes and expenses during the 2016 budget year, which ended June 30. Tennessee collected $394 million, Louisiana collected $177.9 million and Arkansas collected $85.2 million.

Alabama, which also shares a border with Mississippi, does not have a lottery.

Members of the study group will travel sometime to Louisiana and Arkansas to look at lottery operations there, said Bennett, who is chairman of the House Gaming Committee.

William Perkins, editor of the weekly newspaper for the Mississippi Baptist Convention, said after Thursday’s meeting that the state’s largest religious group opposes a lottery because “it corrupts the soul.” He said people could gamble away money their families need, and that could lead to child abuse and divorce.

“It’s almost like having an Olympic-size swimming pool and buying enough BB’s to fill up the swimming pool, paint one of them red, put them in the pool and mix it up and then charge people $2 to reach in and try to find the red BB in the Olympic swimming pool,” Perkins said. “That’s how futile it is and that’s how useless it is to depend on a lottery or any form of gambling to support your family.”

Nobody at Thursday’s meeting spoke in favor of a lottery.

Mississippi has 28 state-regulated casinos along the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River, and some casino lobbyists were among the observers at the meeting Thursday. Casino executives used to oppose creation of a lottery in Mississippi, but they haven’t spoken with a unified voice on the issue in recent years.