DFS Apps in Mississippi

Mississippi’s strict daily fantasy sports licensing rules limit player choice because only a handful of operators hold MGC licenses. Fortunately, most of the nation’s most prominent, reputable, and popular DFS apps are licensed to serve Mississippi residents.

Additionally, the variety of operators licensed to offer daily fantasy sports in Mississippi provides fans with a wide choice of contest types, including salary cap tournaments with large, guaranteed prize pools, snake-draft season-long leagues, and pick’em-style contests.

DFS App	Licensed?	Notes
Underdog	Yes	Offers fantasy pick’em and salary cap DFS contests
FanDuel Fantasy	Yes	Offers salary cap DFS contests with the biggest prize pools in MS
Yahoo DFS	Yes	Offers salary cap, season-long, and pick’em-style games
DraftKings Fantasy	Yes	Offers salary cap DFS contests only
PrizePicks Predictions	No	Not licensed to offer DFS but does offer team and culture prediction markets in MS

Why DFS Is Important in Mississippi

Sports betting is legal in Mississippi, but it’s retail only: you have to be physically present at a licensed casino in the Gulf Coast or Tunica to place wagers in person. If you’re located somewhere like Jackson, Hattiesburg, or Oxford, retail betting doesn’t do much good.

Legal daily fantasy sports apps and prediction markets are the only practical at-home play in that case. Together, they are the closest alternative to statewide online sports betting in Mississippi:

• Fantasy Pick’em Apps: Make more/less predictions on whether individual athletes will exceed their projected stat totals (feels like totals and prop bets in sports betting).
• Sports Prediction Markets: Trade yes/no contracts on single-game winners, season-long outcomes, and even multi-leg events (feels like parlay bets).

Fantasy Pick’em Apps in Mississippi

Fantasy pick’em apps are legal and regulated in Mississippi.

However, fantasy pick ‘em contests work differently in Mississippi than in unregulated states. The classic format, in which you pick “more” or “less” on individual player stat projections for fixed payouts against the house, is not permitted here.

In 2023, MGC Executive Director Jay McDaniel sent operators a letter restating the state’s rules and confirming that Mississippi does not allow fantasy contests played against the house.

Instead, Mississippi DFS laws state that contests:

• Must reflect the accumulated statistics of multiple athletes
• Cannot pit one athlete’s performance directly against another’s
• Cannot be decided by a single factor of one athlete’s performance.

Those requirements rule out the standard player-versus-house pick’em format that operators like Underdog and PrizePicks offered in Mississippi at the time.

Daily fantasy sports apps in Mississippi adapted by launching peer-to-peer pick’em contests, where you compete against other players rather than the house.

Peer-to-peer fantasy pick ‘em contests feel a lot like the original, against-the-house version, but they comply with Mississippi’s DFS laws and remain available (if offered by licensed operators).

Mississippi Daily Fantasy Sports Law

Mississippi’s path to regulating DFS contests began in 2016 when State Attorney General Jim Hood took the position that paid fantasy contests amounted to illegal gambling, classifying them as games of chance rather than skill. The opinion did not immediately push operators out, but it did put them on uncertain legal footing.

Lawmakers moved to settle the question in 2016 with SB 2541, which created the Fantasy Contest Act on a temporary basis. The law let operators run contests legally while the state developed a permanent framework, but it carried a sunset provision set to expire in July 2017.

The permanent fix arrived just in time. Governor Phil Bryant signed HB 967 into law in March 2017, which took effect on July 1^st, 2017. The law assigns regulatory authority to the Mississippi Gaming Commission and sets the terms operators must meet:

• Operators pay a $5,000 fee for a three-year license.
• Any operator with 100 or more players in a calendar year must hold a license.
• Licensees pay an 8% tax on their net Mississippi DFS revenue.
• Violations carry civil penalties of up to $1,000 each, capped at $50,000.

Additional regulations fill in the details on various topics ranging from contest rules and integrity to consumer protection and licensing application requirements.

Some of the most notable consumer protection rules for Mississippi DFS players require operators to:

• Maintain a separate cash reserve to ensure they have enough money on hand at all times to cover customers’ account balances
• Undergo annual compliance audits to ensure they’re adhering to all relevant laws (including customer protection regulations)
• Provide self-exclusion tools for customers who need help stopping
• Refrain from marketing to minors, self-excluded customers, and other prohibited participants
• Provide players with opportunities to file Patron Disputes with the Mississippi Gaming Commission

Mississippi Daily Fantasy Sports FAQ