Get ready to bet legally on the Saints or your favorite college team this football season, now that the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down the federal law that permitted sports betting only in Nevada and a handful of other states with grandfather status.
Only, don’t count on doing it in Louisiana. Bills filed in the state’s current legislative session to pave the way for sports betting — which hinged on this Supreme Court ruling — have been defeated already.
Huge ruling on sports betting by Supreme Court, but Louisiana appears unlikely to participate
For Louisiana gamblers, Mississippi seems a safer bet.
Mississippi legislators already passed a law in 2017 legalizing sports betting at casinos if it is legal in the United States, which means Mississippi could be one of the first states to offer sports betting.
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“We’re a sports-oriented culture here,” Allen Godfrey, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Association, said of Mississippi. “Being the only state in the Southeast that will be offering this, it will be an exciting time for properties.”
“We’ve been exploring options and locations for at least the past two months expecting it to happen,” Chett Harrison, general manager of Golden Nugget Casino Biloxi, said of the overturn of the ban on sports betting. “We’re definitely, 100 percent going to be in the game.”
Golden Nugget in Las Vegas is one of the few casinos with an in-house bookmaker, he said. Sports betting isn’t a huge money maker for a casino, he said, but is a boost for traffic into a casino, especially during the Super Bowl, Final Four and other big sporting events.
“It’s definitely going to be a good boost for Mississippi,” he said, especially since no other state in the region has passed a law like Mississippi did to allow sports betting.
“Louisiana didn’t even approve it,” he said, although he said it is just a matter of time before Louisiana does adopt legislation.