Louisiana Daily Fantasy Will Hopefully Launch Before the 2021 NFL Season
Contents
Daily Fantasy Legal Update
Louisiana Daily Fantasy was supposed to arrive this NFL season, but the complexities of the laws regarding the different parishes, similar to counties in other states, makes it extremely difficult both for operators and lawmakers to get this thing off the ground.
According to local KSLA 12 News, the new timeline for fantasy football will be to launch before the fall NFL season in 2021. Hopefully, this is true and the 47 parishes out of a possible 64 that approved legal online daily fantasy sports can finally start to play.
The Louisiana Gaming Control Board is the regulator responsible for getting all the wording, regulations, rules, and laws in order for daily fantasy sports. However, if you are going to point the finger for the extreme delay and time it is taking for daily fantasy sports to launch, then you have to point it at the control board.
As per the terms of the legalization process, the state has settled on an 8% tax on fantasy sports and that money is designated to go towards early childhood education systems within the state.
DFS Foreshadowing Sports Betting Process in Louisiana?
Sports betting was legalized by 55 out of the 64 parishes in the state of Louisiana during the election in 2020. This was a monumental moment for the state as it is paving the way for the Gaming Control Board to launch sports betting to an overwhelming majority of the state.
However, sports betting has a lot more at stake than DFS. For one, the sheer amount of money being transacted will be exponentially higher than DFS as well as the fact that sports betting has many more regulations and complications than daily fantasy sports.
The worry for many experts and Louisiana bettors is the fact that if daily fantasy keeps getting pushed back farther and farther, then what will happen to sports betting? Louisiana may rival only New York is the vaguest and longest process to get daily fantasy up and running. If the same exact people are responsible for sports betting, then unfortunately not only is a 2021 launch out of the question, but 2022 seems highly doubtful as well.
Lawmakers and the Gaming Control Board will begin work on the sports betting legal process as well as resume the process for daily fantasy sportsbooks in the spring legislative season. It will be interesting to see if there is any pressure put on by the people of Louisiana or even the companies that will be offering these services to have the process sped up.
One thing to note is that the pandemic has left Louisiana in a major budget deficit, and sports betting as well as daily fantasy sports can be a piece to the puzzle in solving that issue and balancing the books. This is one thing that could also leave sports betting on the fast track for the Bayou State. However, at the rate that Louisiana seems to get things done, it may not matter or be helpful in the recovery process that far down the road.
