Louisiana Fantasy Sports to Could Start this Spring
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After multiple years of waiting on the sidelines, daily fantasy sports could be coming to Louisiana as early as the spring. DFS operators will be able to apply for licenses next month as the state can finally get daily fantasy off the ground.
47 Louisiana parishes voted in favor of DFS in 2018, and the state gambling board is finally giving them the approval to move forward. Lawmakers have struggled to get rules and regulations finalized over the last few years, but it is finally looking like Louisiana will get DFS games sometime in 2021.
Louisiana Daily Fantasy Sports
With the Louisiana State Police’s Gaming Enforcement Division, Chuck McNeal made a statement that daily fantasy operators can begin submitting applications to the board by February 19. The process will take between 60 to 90 days, according to McNeal.
If DFS operators pass the investigation, the board will decide to give them a license to operate in the state. This puts the daily fantasy sports launch sometime between the end of April at the earliest. By May, Louisiana should finally see DFS running in the state.
The Bayou State is expected to see a lot of demand for daily fantasy sports, with 47 of the 64 parishes legalizing the industry. Louisiana will also get a good indication of how the sports betting market will perform in the state, based on how popular daily fantasy sports are.
It took over two years for DFS to come to fruition in Louisiana, but lawmakers have taxes and regulations set on the industry and will be ready to go in the coming months. The Louisiana Gaming Control Board will decide on who will receive licenses.
Daily fantasy users will have to be 21 years or older to participate. DFS games will only be allowed in states that legalized them in the parishes. However, anyone in the state can travel to a parish with DFS gaming and play.
Will Sports Betting Take this Long?
In November 2020, Louisiana voters also voted in favor of legalizing sports betting in the state, two years after daily fantasy sports passed in the 2018 election.
This was a big day for Louisiana, but it brought many questions as to how long it would take for the Bayou State to get sports betting off the ground. When sports betting passed in Louisiana, there was no timetable when DFS gaming would be launching in the state.
There was a lot of back and forth between daily fantasy sports regulations, and the same issue could come up with getting the sports betting industry off the ground. 55 of the 64 parishes voted in favor of sports betting in November, and with Daily fantasy sports finally off the ground, and it could become more clear as how long it will take Louisiana to launch sports betting.
There is hope with launching another gaming industry that it won’t take the Bayou State as long to go live with sports betting. In general, states are taking roughly 6-12 months to launch sports betting. Considering how it took for DFS to get going in the state, Louisiana could see sports betting operating by next year’s Super Bowl.
Right now, there is no true timetable on when it will happen, but Louisiana got huge news regarding the daily fantasy sports industry today.
