Louisiana House Passes Two Sweepstakes Casino Bills, Including Nation’s First Racketeering Measure
Louisiana is not done with sweepstakes casinos. The state House has passed two bills in the span of weeks that would take the most aggressive legislative stance against the sector anywhere in the country.
Together, they represent a two-pronged escalation that moves well beyond cease-and-desist orders and into criminal enterprise territory.
House Bill 883, which would explicitly classify dual-currency sweepstakes gaming as illegal online gambling under state law, passed the full House 98-0 on April 14 and now heads to the Senate. House Bill 53, which would add sweepstakes gaming offenses to Louisiana’s racketeering statute, passed the House 87-11 and has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary C Committee.
What HB 883 Does
HB 883, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Schlegel, codifies what Louisiana’s Attorney General and Governor have argued informally for over a year. The bill amends the state’s definition of illegal gambling to explicitly include online or mobile games that use a dual-currency system and allow players to redeem one form of currency for cash, prizes, or equivalents.
That language directly targets the model used by sweepstakes casinos, which typically operate with Gold Coins for free-to-play modes and Sweepstakes Coins redeemable for real-world prizes. Platforms have long argued that because Sweepstakes Coins can theoretically be obtained for free, their products fall outside gambling law. HB 883 closes that argument in Louisiana once and for all.
The bill’s reach extends beyond operators. It targets platform providers, gaming content suppliers, geolocation providers, promoters, media affiliates, and any person who knowingly supports or facilitates a sweepstakes gaming platform. Violators face fines of up to $40,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. Each wager accepted counts as a separate violation.
What HB 53 Does
HB 53, introduced by Rep. Bryan Fontenot, takes a different and nationally unprecedented approach. Rather than creating a new standalone ban, it adds sweepstakes gaming offenses to Louisiana’s existing racketeering statute. Operating electronic sweepstakes gaming, gambling by computer, and gambling in public would all become predicate racketeering offenses.
That designation fundamentally changes the enforcement landscape. Standard gambling bans allow for fines and cease-and-desist orders. Racketeering statutes allow prosecutors to pursue enterprise-level cases, targeting not just operators but also the entire supporting network of vendors, affiliates, and financial intermediaries that constitute a broader criminal organization. The bill passed the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice 12-0 before clearing the full chamber.
No other state has attempted to bring sweepstakes casinos under a racketeering framework. It is the most aggressive legislative tool applied to the sector anywhere in the US.
Louisiana’s Year-Long Escalation
Louisiana’s current approach to sweepstakes casinos reflects a deliberate escalation that began with a failed legislative attempt in 2025. That year’s legislature passed a sweepstakes ban bill, but Governor Jeff Landry vetoed it, arguing the language was overly broad and that the existing law already gave authorities sufficient tools to act.
He was not wrong about the tools. Within weeks of the veto, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board and the Attorney General’s office sent cease-and-desist notices to nearly 40 sweepstakes operators. Attorney General Liz Murrill issued a formal legal opinion declaring the dual-currency sweepstakes model to be illegal under existing Louisiana law. The combination of enforcement actions drove most major sweepstakes brands either out of the state entirely or to remove their Sweeps Coin offerings from Louisiana.
HB 883 would formally codify the AG’s position in statute. HB 53 would give prosecutors a heavier weapon for the cases that remain.
The Governor Question
Both bills now advance to the Senate. If they clear both chambers, the question becomes whether Landry will sign or veto them, as he did in 2025. His objection last time was that the ban was redundant given existing law and enforcement capacity. HB 883 would make that argument harder to sustain by providing explicit statutory text.
HB 53 offers expanded enforcement tools rather than a duplicative prohibition, which may be more consistent with Landry’s stated preference to use existing frameworks aggressively rather than create new ones.
Louisiana’s actions are part of a national trend. More than a dozen states have banned or restricted sweepstakes casinos in the past 12 months. Louisiana’s two-bill approach, combining explicit prohibition with racketeering classification, sets a new benchmark for how aggressively a state can pursue the sector.
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