Chris Boline
While Texas sports betting still hasn’t been made legal, that doesn’t mean that folks all over the Lone Star State haven’t been able to visit sportsbooks in neighboring places to get their fixes. Well, there’s about to be a big change this week, as Texas bettors are ready to take advantage of Louisiana’s online launch on Friday morning. This has long been coming for Louisiana, but it’s of course big news for Texans as well.
For years now, we’ve seen folks in Texas travel to different states to make their bets. Arkansas has been popular, and of course Nevada has been huge, with Las Vegas always being a popular destination for folks to check out. As soon as it was revealed that Louisiana was about to make history on its own and make sports betting legal, this raised plenty of eyebrows all over Texas.
These two share state lines, which means it will be quite easy for folks in Texas to head over to Louisiana for trips and take advantage of the new laws by checking out different odds. With the NFL postseason about to wrap up, you know this is probably going to entice plenty of folks to check out the Super Bowl odds before making their way to Louisiana as well.
On Friday, Louisiana indeed will launch its sports betting for online use. In-person betting has been made available since October, with historic numbers being put up for folks in that state. Now with online betting coming, it’s only going to add to the success for Louisiana as a whole. While folks in Texas have been making bets in person, imagine extended stays in Louisiana to make online bets as well. It’s intriguing.
BREAKING: Louisiana online sports betting will launch on Friday, Jan. 28, at 8 a.m.
— RLinnehanXL (@RLinnehanXl) January 26, 2022
Folks in Louisiana and Texas have been loving sports betting thus far
It goes without saying, but folks in Louisiana and Texas have been loving sports betting thus far since it has been open. Now, though, the online aspect of things is really going to send things over the top. For folks in Texas, they of course are going to have to wait until 2023 the earliest to see if sports betting will eventually be making its way over. There was hope that it would happen last year, but no luck.
The good news here, though, is that the success in Louisiana thus far is really opening the eyes of legislators. According to local reports, folks in Texas have been keeping a close eye on what’s going on not only in Louisiana, but the other close-by states as well. This makes a ton of sense. With everything going so well in Louisiana, it should give Texas yet another reason to try and move forward with things.
Louisiana Online Sports Betting to launch this Friday – 4 Sportsbooks Confirmed! – ESTNN Esports https://t.co/iU07NbTtBJ #SportsBetting #Betting #Gambling
— Sports News & Videos (@robinsportsnews) January 27, 2022
For the Friday launch of the online mobile apps, four companies have confirmed that they’re going to be ready to fire away as well. Those companies are: DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars and BetMGM. Obviously, that number is expected to grow in the coming months. For now, though, those four places are where sports fans are going to be able to go to make their first online bets for Louisiana.
As we mentioned above, this is going to be big for people in Texas too, as they now have yet another reason to make their way over. One of the biggest and best cities in Louisiana is New Orleans, and they have of course been given the go-ahead among the many parishes for sports betting in-person and online. You already know countless Texas folks have been going to NOLA for some betting fun.
What’s next for Texas sports betting?
With all of this said, people continue to wonder what’s next for Texas sports betting? As things stand, there’s loads of optimism that things will be able to pass during the 2023 voting session. While people have enjoyed traveling to outside regions to make their bets – turning it into mini vacations at the same time – there’s no reason for Texas to keep standing pat with legalizing things.
Jerry Jones continues to be an outspoken voice for Texas sports betting. He knows there’s billions and billions of dollars on the line here. With that said, we’re seeing more and more states go live with sports betting. In early January, New York launched its venture and the results have been head-turning. A report stated that more than $150 million in bets were recorded during the opening weekend.
Those numbers will only keep growing this month, especially with the 2022 Super Bowl Right around the corner. While Texas won’t be able to take advantage of things this year, countless folks are hopeful that this will no longer be the case once 2023 arrives. People are ready to vote it in.
Only time will tell if Texas will finally be able to launch things as well, as it’s time to get things done. With so many big-time professional and college teams in Texas, sports betting makes so much sense for Texas as a whole. We’ll have to keep staying tuned to see if more positive steps can be taken in the near future for this project as a whole.
