The Louisiana Judiciary B Committee recently voted 3-1 to move SB 153, which would legalize sports betting, to the Senate floor. Sports wagering on college and professional sporting events would be taxed at 8 percent. Betting would be allowed at licensed riverboat and land-based casinos and racinos, which would pay $5,000 each for an annual gaming license. If approved by the House and Senate, the issue would be decided on a parish-by-parish basis on a statewide ballot; the earliest date an election could be held is October 12. If approved, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board would require five months to come up with rules, then issue licenses. The state probably would not collect any receipts before July 2020.
The measure’s sponsor, state Senator Danny Martiny, said, “I’m trying to keep the bill as simple as possible. I tried as best as I could to mirror what is going on in our neighboring states, like Mississippi. But my bill does not go as far as Mississippi with regard to mobile gaming. I’m trying to address that in a very limited way even though I do know that the future of sports betting is in mobile.”
Mississippi’s sports betting law allows on-site sports betting only. Martiny’s bill would limit mobile gaming to a designated sports betting area on a casino floor. He said, “If the bet is going to be placed, you have to be in the designated gaming area. We know that doing state-wide mobile is vastly more profitable, but that is a vast expansion of gaming, and that’s not what I’m doing.”
He added, “With regard to not including real-time mobile gaming, I have really mixed emotions about that. But in the same way, having served in this building for the last 25 years, I understand the people. People not having a complete understanding, I’m just afraid that will be taken by the opponents and will turn into, ‘Martiny wants wide-open gaming.’ We loaded it up a lot last year, and this is why it got killed.”
Martiny’s bill was one of two gaming bills before the committee. Both would direct some revenue to early childhood education and to gambling addiction services. “You know that I even said last year, that sports betting in no way will save the budget situation. Whatever it is, it is, if nothing else, it will stop some of the bleeding of the money that is going offshore and to Mississippi and Arkansas. The bottom line is that if this bill goes nowhere, we have no money for the good purpose that I want. If this bill dies, well sports betting is already here. We’re already getting all the ills. We’re going to lose money to Mississippi and all of the other states if we don’t regulate it.”
Mississippi reported collecting $2.5 million in tax revenue in the first seven months of sports betting, which is taxed at 12 percent. That could bring about $5 million in tax revenue to the state.
