Louisiana Just Killed Its Own Prop Bet Ban After Lawmakers Saw the $40M Price Tag

Prop bettors in Louisiana can breathe easy for at least another year. A state Senate bill that would have wiped out prop bets and micro-wagers from every legal sportsbook in the Bayou State was quietly shelved last week after a fiscal analysis left the bill’s own sponsor “shocked” by how much it would cost the state. The answer, it turns out, was close to $40 million annually — and that number killed the bill faster than any lobbyist could have.

Senate Bill 354, introduced by Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews (D-Monroe) in late February 2026, sought to strike proposition bets from Louisiana’s list of authorized wagers. It also would have introduced a formal definition for “sports micro-bets” — real-time wagers on individual plays, pitches, or possessions while a game is in progress — and banned those outright as well. The bill had received early traction and was referred to the Senate Judiciary B Committee. Then the Louisiana Legislative Fiscal Office ran the numbers.

The Fiscal Note That Stopped the Bill Cold

The analysis was damning, and it came from inside the house. Louisiana’s own fiscal office calculated that banning prop bets and micro-wagers would reduce state General Fund revenue by approximately $21 million per year. On top of that, a cascade of other state-funded programs would take hits totaling another $17 million annually, bringing the projected total shortfall to nearly $40 million.

The SPORT Fund — which supports NCAA Division I athletes at Louisiana’s public universities — stood to lose $9.4 million each year on its own. The Behavioral Health and Wellness Fund, the Postsecondary Inclusive Education Fund, and the Compulsive and Problem Gaming Fund were all in the crosshairs as well. These are not abstract line items. They are programs already written into the state budget with dedicated funding tied directly to sports betting tax receipts.

Jackson-Andrews, who serves on the Senate Finance Committee and framed SB354 as responsible consumer-protection legislation, did not dispute the findings. She told the Judiciary B Committee that she was caught off guard by the magnitude. “I realize the serious nature of what it does to the budget,” she said, before announcing she would withdraw the bill and revisit the issue in the 2027 session.

Why Prop Bets Are Worth So Much to Louisiana

The numbers behind SB354’s collapse tell a larger story about just how central prop and micro-betting have become to the legal sports wagering ecosystem. According to the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, prop bets and micro-bets account for roughly 40 percent of the state’s mobile sports wagering handle and about 13 percent of retail wagering. Those are not niche markets — they are the backbone of how most bettors interact with sportsbook platforms today.

Louisiana sportsbooks logged approximately $4 billion in total mobile wagers during 2025, generating $492 million in operator revenue and $90 million in state taxes. If prop and micro-betting truly account for 40 percent of the handle, those markets alone represent something in the range of $1.6 billion wagered. Removing them would not just inconvenience bettors — it would gut a substantial portion of the state’s sports betting tax base in a single stroke.

Analysts at the Legislative Fiscal Office did note one important caveat: consumer demand for gambling does not disappear just because a specific product is banned. The projection acknowledged that bettors would likely shift activity to other available markets rather than walk away entirely, which could partially offset the projected revenue losses. How much of a cushion that would provide, however, remained an “unknown degree” — not exactly a compelling argument for moving forward.

What This Means for Bettors Right Now

For Louisiana sports bettors, the practical takeaway is straightforward: prop bets and micro-wagers are staying on the board through at least the 2026 season and likely into 2027. The only existing restriction on Louisiana prop markets is the college player prop ban enacted in 2024, which blocked wagers on individual college athletes’ performance. Professional props across all major sports remain fully available through licensed operators in the state.

SB354 is dead for this session, but Jackson-Andrews was clear that she intends to return with a revised approach. Senate Judiciary B chair Mike Reese also signaled interest in broader legislative changes to gambling safety, which means the policy conversation is not going away. The difference next time will likely be a bill constructed with the fiscal constraints already baked in — rather than a proposal that ran headlong into a $40 million wall.

For now, Louisiana lawmakers learned the same lesson that state budget offices have been delivering across the country: prop bets are not just a product feature. They are a revenue engine. Any serious attempt to regulate them out of existence has to account for what fills that hole in the budget — and that is a much harder problem to solve than writing a definition into statute.