How Louisiana Got Here
This didn’t start with HB 53. Back in 2025, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 181 to ban sweepstakes casinos outright. The Senate vote was unanimous, but Governor Jeff Landry vetoed the bill, arguing that the activity was already illegal under existing law and didn’t need new legislation.
Regulators moved quickly after that. The Louisiana Gaming Control Board and State Police sent cease and desist letters to more than 40 operators, and Attorney General Liz Murrill followed with a formal legal opinion stating that sweepstakes casinos already qualify as illegal gambling under state law.
LGCB Chairman Christopher Hebert put it plainly: “Louisiana will not tolerate illegal operators who put our citizens at risk and undermine the fairness and integrity of our gaming industry.”
Then came the lawsuits.
In September 2025, the Department of Revenue sued VGW, the company behind Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, and Global Poker, along with WOW Vegas operator MW Services, alleging roughly $44 million in unpaid sales taxes. Even after operators pulled out of the state, the enforcement didn’t stop there.
Now lawmakers are going further, not just targeting the activity, but changing how it’s prosecuted.
What HB 53 Actually Does
HB 53 doesn’t just target sweepstakes casinos, it also changes how they’re treated under the law.
The bill adds several gambling related offenses to Louisiana’s racketeering statute, including gambling by computer, electronic sweepstakes devices, unlawful wagering, and even bribery tied to sports betting.
That matters because of how racketeering law works. Prosecutors don’t have to treat each violation on its own. If they can show at least two of these offenses, they can treat the entire operation as a coordinated criminal enterprise.
And that’s where things escalate, because liability doesn’t stop with the operator. It can extend to payment processors, affiliates, software providers, and anyone tied into how the platform runs.
This isn’t about fines for individual violations. It’s about building a case that the entire model operates like an organized system.
The Companion Bill
Rep. Laurie Schlegel’s House Bill 883 goes straight at the core issue. It defines dual currency sweepstakes gaming as illegal online gambling and targets everyone in the supply chain, not just operators. Payment processors, partners, and anyone else involved all fall within reach, and each wager can be treated as its own violation.
That bill cleared the House with a 98–0 vote, showing just how much agreement there is around tightening the rules.
Taken together, the two measures don’t overlap, they reinforce each other. One draws a clear legal line around what counts as illegal. The other raises the stakes for anyone who crosses it.
One closes the door. The other locks it.
Why This Approach Works Politically
Last year’s attempt to ban sweepstakes casinos ran straight into a wall. The governor vetoed it, saying the activity was already illegal and didn’t need a new law.
HB 53 takes the governor’s own logic and pushes it further. If sweepstakes casinos are already illegal, then repeated violations don’t just break gambling laws, they can be treated as part of a larger criminal operation. That’s a different argument entirely, and it doesn’t try to win the same fight again. It changes the terms of it.
The Bigger Picture
Louisiana isn’t alone in going after sweepstakes casinos. Indiana and Maine have already moved to ban them, and others are heading the same way.
What sets Louisiana apart is how far it’s willing to go. This isn’t just about stopping operators. It brings in everyone connected to the business, payment processors, marketing partners, tech providers, and raises the stakes for the entire model.
And with two bills moving through the Senate and a June 1 deadline closing in, the industry may not have long to wait before it finds out exactly how serious Louisiana is.