Economic DevelopmentPolitics & PolicyHospitality & Tourism

Landside gaming is giving Baton Rouge’s casino market a successful second act

July 7, 2026

Bally_s BR Casino exterior — THE TRANSFORMATION: State legislation in 2018 authorized riverboat casinos to relocate to land-based facilities, provided they stayed within 1,200 feet of their original docks. The transformation at Bally’s has been the most dramatic: The $160 million reinvention of the old Catfish Town space delivers 25,000 square feet of Vegas-style gaming, entertainment and dining.

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Not long ago, the Belle of Baton Rouge was pulling in somewhere between $600,000 and $700,000 a month—respectable, perhaps, for a riverboat casino rocking gently on the Mississippi, but hardly the stuff of Vegas dreams. Reborn as Bally’s Baton Rouge Casino & Hotel and planted firmly on dry land, that same property now generates $4

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