Seven new gambling laws were passed by the Louisiana legislature and signed by Governor John Bel Edwards this year. The bills will permit riverboat casinos to move ashore and allow gambling on mobile devices. Other bills were rejected, such as allowing sports betting and expanding Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans.
Louisiana riverboat casinos can apply to move ashore within 1,200 feet of their current location. They will be required provide an economic development justification for moving.
The new law will let riverboat casinos expand gambling operations even if they don’t move ashore. Currently the state’s 15 riverboat casinos are limited to 30,000 square feet of gambling space, but the law changes that to a cap of 2,365 gambling positions. At the moment, no riverboat has that many gambling seats. The Golden Nugget in Lake Charles offers 2,152. The proposed cap would allow 35,475 positions at the 15 riverboats, a significant increase.
The new law also allows riverboat casinos to conduct four gambling tournaments per year, for a maximum of 14 days each; these will not count toward a riverboat’s gambling position cap.
Another new law would allow fantasy sports games to be played on the internet and smartphones if voters in each parish approve it on the November ballot. If voters in a parish reject it, people could not legally play the games on their smartphones or computers there.
Even if parishes approve fantasy sports gambling, more legislation will be needed in 2019 to determine how to regulate and tax the games. The state’s Gaming Control Board also would need to devise rules for how fantasy sports apps would be allowed to operate in Louisiana.
Larger slot machines would be allowed at the state’s four horseracing tracks under another new law. Current state law restricts the gambling space at racetracks to 15,000 square feet, but under the new legislation, tracks will have a limit of 1,632 machines and “gambling seats,” which will be determined by the Gaming Control Board.
The new racetrack law also allows money collected from slots at any of the four locations to go toward purse prizes given out at any of the racetracks. Formerly, slot machine revenue could not be transferred from one track to another for prizes.
Another new law changes the definition of what counts as video poker and removes some restrictions on the appearance of video poker games and video poker machines.
The law also changes the 75,000 gallons-per-month sales requirement at video poker truck stops to 30,000 gallons in order to retain 40 video poker machines. The fuel sales restriction applied to video poker truck stop casinos that had been in business for 10 years or more. The law also lets the Gaming Control Board develop new rules allowing alternative fuel sources to count toward video poker truck stops’ monthly fuel sales requirement.
Another new law removes the requirement that the owner or employee of a video poker operator be present when a video poker machine is serviced.
In addition, a new law sponsored by Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger prohibits casinos from ejecting players just because they are skilled gamblers. “I just don’t want them to have such wide latitude to exclude people based on their winnings,” Leger said.
Another new law will allow the state gaming control board to adjust the limits for non-gambling entities–like food or car service suppliers that work with casinos. Currently those suppliers must purchase a permit for $250 a year if they do more than $200,000 in business with gambling interests.
