Sweepstakes Casinos in Louisiana (2026)

Are sweepstakes casinos legal in Louisiana?

No. Louisiana banned dual-currency sweepstakes casinos by statute on August 1, 2026, and the major brands had already left the state a year earlier. House Bill 883, carried by Representative Laurie Schlegel, passed the House 99-0 on April 14, 2026 and the Senate 35-0 on May 12, 2026. Governor Jeff Landry signed it in May as Act 182 of the 2026 Regular Session. It rewrites Louisiana’s gambling-by-computer statute (R.S. 14:90.3) so that offering an online game that uses a dual-currency system of payment, where either currency can be redeemed for cash, prizes or cash equivalents, and that simulates any form of gambling is illegal gambling by computer.

Louisiana was hostile territory before the statute. Gambling in Louisiana is defined by the familiar three elements of consideration, chance and prize, and the state’s regulators never accepted that a free mail-in entry route removes consideration when most Sweeps Coins arrive bundled with Gold Coin purchases. In June 2025 the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, working with the Attorney General and State Police, sent cease-and-desist letters to 40 offshore and sweepstakes operators, and in July 2025 Attorney General Liz Murrill issued a formal opinion concluding that online sweepstakes casinos are illegal under existing law. Stake.us, Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker and Modo withdrew after the letters; Pulsz, McLuck and High 5 Casino had already stopped serving the state.

We are not lawyers. The casinos in our national list do not accept Louisiana players, and none should be expected to return while Act 182 stands.

Timeline

• April 29, 2025: Senate Bill 181, sponsored by Senator Adam Bass, passes the Senate 39-0. It would have made dual-currency sweepstakes games a prohibited activity with civil penalties of $10,000 to $100,000 per incident.
• Early June 2025: the House passes SB 181 99-0.
• June 12, 2025: Governor Landry vetoes SB 181, calling it unnecessary because the Gaming Control Board is already acting against illegal online gambling, and describing parts of its language as overly broad.
• June 17, 2025: the Gaming Control Board announces 40 cease-and-desist letters to offshore sportsbooks and sweepstakes operators, including VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker) and Bovada. Chairman Christopher Hebert says Louisiana will not allow unregulated operators to keep targeting its residents.
• July 2025: Attorney General Murrill’s opinion concludes that online sweepstakes casinos are operating illegally in Louisiana.
• September 2025: the Louisiana Department of Revenue sues VGW and a related company for roughly $44 million in unpaid sales taxes.
• January 30, 2026: Representative Bryan Fontenot files HB 53, adding gambling offences, including gambling by computer, to the state racketeering statute.
• February 27, 2026: Representative Schlegel prefiles HB 883.
• April 14 and May 12, 2026: HB 883 passes the House 99-0 and the Senate 35-0. HB 53 also clears both chambers.
• May 2026: Governor Landry signs both bills. HB 883 becomes Act 182.
• August 1, 2026: both laws take effect.

How Louisiana law treats sweepstakes and gambling

• Gambling by computer (R.S. 14:90.3): conducting, or directly assisting in conducting, a game of chance as a business over the internet is a crime. Act 182 adds dual-currency games that simulate gambling to the definition and lifts the maximum fine from $20,000 to $100,000 per violation, with up to five years in prison with or without hard labor. Each wager offered or accepted counts as a separate violation.
• Facilitators: payment processors, platform providers and others who knowingly support an illegal online gambling operation are covered, and the Attorney General can issue cease-and-desist orders and pursue asset seizure.
• Racketeering (HB 53): gambling offences are now predicate acts under Louisiana’s racketeering law, which carries up to 50 years at hard labor and fines of up to $1 million.
• Players: the offences target those who conduct or assist the business. Ordinary players are not the focus of enforcement, but anyone who kept a balance with a departed operator should contact its support team about redemptions or refunds.
• Regulators: the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, the Attorney General’s Gaming Division and the State Police Gaming Enforcement Division.

What Louisiana players should check

• Age: Louisiana sets 21 as the minimum age for every form of legal gambling, including casinos, video poker, sports betting and the Lottery, and the operators that served the state applied 21+.
• Geolocation: sites that left Louisiana block the state by location. Using a VPN breaches their terms and risks forfeiture of any balance.
• Alternative-model claims: Act 182 is written around simulated gambling and dual-currency redemption for cash or prizes. Treat any site that claims to be exempt with caution and read its Louisiana terms.
• Identity checks: every legal gambling product in Louisiana requires ID verification before payouts.

Other legal ways to play in Louisiana

Louisiana has one of the deepest gambling markets in the South. It has around 20 riverboat and land-based commercial casinos, including Caesars New Orleans, four racinos, four tribal casinos (Coushatta, Paragon, Cypress Bayou and Jena Choctaw Pines) and video poker at thousands of truck stops, bars and restaurants. The Louisiana Lottery has run since 1991. Online sports betting launched on January 28, 2022 in the 55 parishes that approved it, with retail sportsbooks at the casinos. Daily fantasy sports is legal in the parishes that voted for it. There is no legal online casino gaming, and Act 182 makes clear that dual-currency sites are not a substitute.

Staying up to date

We track enforcement under Act 182 and HB 53, any 2027 legislation and every operator’s Louisiana policy. This page and the casino list are updated as soon as anything changes; the review date in the header shows when we last checked.