Sports Betting Sites / Play / Louisiana governor finalizes laws enshrining sweepstakes casinos as potential racketeering activity

Louisiana governor finalizes laws enshrining sweepstakes casinos as potential racketeering activity

Derek Helling

Legal Writer

Publish Date: May 25, 2026

Fact checked by: Matt Moreno

Key Points

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB 53 and HB 883, inserting new tenets into the state’s racketeering law.
The new statutes characterize sweepstakes casinos as illegal gambling in Louisiana.
Operators could face the toughest criminal penalties in the nation upon conviction.

Louisiana could soon be the most imposing jurisdiction in the United States for the operators of sweepstakes casinos. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed two bills that collectively create a daunting legal landscape for companies and individuals involved in online sweepstakes casinos.

The statutes, both of which take effect on Aug. 1, 2026, add sweepstakes casinos to the forms of unauthorized gaming in Louisiana but elevate the gravity of the situation by escalating that form of illegal gambling to a violation of the state’s racketeering law. With those potential consequences looming, sweepstakes casino operators still doing business in the state have time to consider their options.

Louisiana state capitol

Landry approves HB 53 and HB 883

After Landry signed HB 53 on May 11, he did the same for HB 883 on May 15. The combination of the legislation addresses perceived loopholes in the state’s gaming laws.

HB 53 adds “gambling by computer” to the list of activities that can be prosecuted as racketeering in Louisiana. HB 883 modifies the definition of “gambling by computer.”

That modification includes online games that use dual-currency systems to award prizes to players. As a result, sweepstakes casino operators could face racketeering charges when the statutes take effect in August.

Convictions along those lines could mean penalties of up to $1 million in fines and a prison sentence of up to 50 years. Sweepstakes casino operators have a couple of paths to avoiding that situation.

More exits could be on the horizon

Some sweepstakes casino operators have already stopped doing business in Louisiana because of the threat of enforcement prior to the enactment of these new laws. That number could increase as the risk has escalated.

An alternative to exiting the state altogether could be discontinuing use of the dual-currency system. Some websites have gone that route in other states, curtailing their sales of digital currency packages to consist of a single currency that cannot be exchanged for prizes.

That may work in Louisiana as well, as HB 883 explicitly targets sites that use dual-currency systems. However, that may still leave some room for prosecution and conviction may depend on the court’s interpretation of the law.

Exiting Louisiana may be safer in terms of avoiding any civil or criminal liability. With the new laws in place, the map has shrank for sweepstakes casinos again.

Louisiana joins mounting number of states restricting sweepstakes casinos

Louisiana is now the 10th U.S. jurisdiction with some kind of explicit restrictions on the operation of sweepstakes casinos within their borders. Most of the other nine have enacted their statutes within the past three years.

California
Connecticut
Idaho
Indiana
Maine
Montana
New Jersey
Oklahoma
Washington

Iowa has also passed a law expanding the powers of its gaming regulatory body to enforce the state’s gambling laws against unlicensed gambling websites. Sweepstakes casinos could be among the targets of that action.

Minnesota’s legislature and the Washington, DC City Council are considering similar measures, which could further limit the places in the U.S. where sweepstakes casinos can legally operate. For now, sweepstakes casino operators have decisions to make over the next two months regarding the situation in Louisiana.

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