Super Bowl weekend is coming, and while many Louisiana football fans won’t have a vested interest in the winner of this weekend’s game, most won’t have a financial one, either.
Sports betting is still off the table in Louisiana after legislators last year couldn’t agree on how to move the issue forward, entangling it with questions over the right tax structure and the separate issue of online fantasy sports.
Meanwhile, the American Gaming Association is predicting a record 26 million Americans will place $6.8 billion worth of bets on this weekend’s Super Bowl LIV.
Officials with the Louisiana Gaming Control Board say the legality of sports betting could be brought up again in this session, but not the taxes. Louisiana Casino Association Executive Director Wade Duty says that’s exactly what he hopes happens.
“We really don’t want to wait until 2021. A fiscal session is harder to do a general authoring piece,” Duty says.
The association has begun initial discussions with legislators that may be willing to author the bill, but after last year’s raucous events, Duty was hesitant to disclose who that might be.
Louisiana is one of 16 states without legal sports betting, according to the American Gaming Association. Mississippi and Arkansas legalized the practice after the U.S. Supreme Court shot down the long-standing Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018 that prohibited state-authorized sports gambling.
Mississippi legislators legalized sports betting beginning in 2018, rolling out the red carpet for casino gambling on both professional and collegiate sports. In its first five months, the state reported over $1 million in new tax revenue from sports betting alone. There, casinos pay a 12% tax, 8% to the state and 4% to the local government.
There are 12 casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that will happily accept the bets you can’t make in Louisiana. Those casinos will even mail out-of-town guests their rewards.
“Mississippi just reported its highest state gaming revenue in its history,” Duty says. “That tells us sports betting is a model that’s working for them. It’s a draw to the facility.”
The proposed tax structure in Louisiana could vary widely from its neighbor. Duty says he wants a single-digit tax rate, one that would make the industry’s tight profit margins more viable.
While Mississippi may be a close competitor geographically, really the industry is competing against the black market—which has no tax rate, he says.
At a 6% tax rate, the profit margin would be limited to 3% or 4%.
The bottom line, however, is Louisiana residents overwhelmingly voted in support of legalizing fantasy sports in their parishes.
“I couldn’t think of a more clear message to the Capitol,” Duty says.
