On August 16th, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board moved into the red zone on getting legal Sports Betting up and running during the 2021 Football Season. But they aren’t across the goal line quite yet. By approving emergency rules and allowing Louisiana’s twenty already licensed casinos to submit applications as of the 16th of August, the hope is that some form of legal sports betting will be up and running by late September.
The emergency regulations which were passed unanimously,should greatly speed up the application process. The emergency rules will be in place for 180 days, but can be extended further. They will mostly aid Harrah’s New Orleans land based casino and the 15 riverboats, to start taking on-premise bets in land based sports books.
But some providers such as BET MGM and other software skins directly owned by already licensed Louisiana casinos may also be able to get up and running shortly. Though the Gaming Control Board is still working out the geofencing that will make sure bets are only placed inside Parish lines that voted to approve sports betting. 55 of 64 parishes voted for legal sports betting in November 2020.
Wade Duty who heads up the Louisiana Casino Association was one of those who thought that bets would come sooner then later, “I’d expect to see some of the brick and mortars ready by mid September”. He also added that many of his member casinos had completed applications and would file them this week.
Many of the riverboat casinos along with the Harrah’s /Caesar’s property in downtown New Orleans started building state of the art sports books months ago, anticipating the passage of this legislation. While some will no doubt open with temporary Sports book areas, look for others to have multi-million dollar sports books up and ready as soon as legal sports betting is allowed in Louisiana.
The Louisiana Lottery Corporation will eventually operate kiosks in most of the 1000 plus Class A liquor license holders in the state.These kiosks will also allow you to place a sports bet.a swell. They are working on their own rules and regulations . That coupled with the need to buy and install kiosks with dedicated software and enhanced suitability and background checks that may be required, probably means betting the Saints and the over at your local bar or tavern is still away off.