Louisiana recently made a step towards the legalization of its sport betting industry. However, it may now be up to the state’s voters to decide if they want sports betting after all.

Louisiana May Need to Have a Referendum on Sports Betting

The idea of asking voters whether they want sports betting is not new at all. Many of the states to recently push for legal sports betting have introduced this as a viable option.

In places like Pennsylvania, opening a new property is a complicated process that involves local councils, representatives of the regulator and the business entity itself.

Now, Louisiana wants to replicate this model as it offers quite bit of leeway. After passing Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) bill, the state is looking forward to bolster up the betting effort – only there is one wrinkle, state voters will have to agree to it.

Now, Sen. Danny Martiny is sponsoring a bill that will focus on sports betting exclusively. Bill S 153 is focused specifically on the main contest rather than the fantasy thing.

Will S 153 Make a Passage in Louisiana?

Sen. Martiny definitely sees a point in trying. S 153 outlines a very easy implementation for the sports betting industry, which has been generally considered to be simpler than integrating online casinos, for example.

According to Sen. Martiny, the state’s casinos and race tracks will be authorized to apply for licenses and offer sports betting products. Oversight will be carried out by the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

These aren’t bad terms. Presently, Louisiana has 16 licensed casinos and there are four race tracks dedicated to the activity exclusively. Some of the largest gambling brands in the state are already present here, including:

• Caesars
• Golden Nugget
• Penn National

A great addition to the bill is the proposal of mobile betting, which will bring Louisiana’s sports-betting-industry-to-be right on par with other places where the measures have already been introduced.

To see the bill come into actual law, though, it will have to be put up for a vote on a parish vote – similarly to what happened to the DFS legislation. The vote is scheduled for October 12 and if everything comes off right and votes throw their support for sports betting, Louisiana will enter 2020 closer to launching a fully-scaled industry.

If everything is indeed successful, licenses can be issued as early as January 1, 2020, which would mean that the state would be able to capture the revenue from the Super Bowl, for example, and especially March Madness and The Masters Golf Tournament, which usually cause millions of dollars to be wagered offshore.