Louisiana Bookies: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and the Slippery Slope
Louisiana bookies have been an endangered species in recent years. During the year 2008 alone over 100 bookies were rounded up across the state.
Things may have calmed down since that time but the memories are still fresh. That football season, state police had seized $1,113,292 in cash. Louisiana has been hostile territory for bookmakers.
Trooper Marcus Smith at the time said: "We get tips on things we become aware of through our investigative process. We're gonna look at it and surprisingly enough, in the state of Louisiana, there's a significant number of illegal gambling operations going on."
Most of the arrests came as a result of tipsters.
2008 wasn’t the end to Louisiana’s crackdown on illegal sports betting businesses.
Six people from Louisiana, including William Bryant III, the premium sales manager for the NBA's New Orleans Hornets, were arrested as part of a multi-state bust of a $178 million online gambling ring in 2010.
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Even before 2008 there were signs of trouble. In 2006, Sportingbet Chairperson Peter Dicks was taken into custody upon arrival at New York’s JFK Airport from his home base of London, England. He and others had secret arrest warrants issued against them by the Louisiana State Police for operating their online gambling websites in that state. Louisiana actually wanted to have Dicks extradited by New York state refused.
It should be noted that, while booking sports is considered a felony in Louisiana, the act of sports wagering is a simple felony.
Since quite a few online sportsbooks have stopped accepting customers from the state, the demand for local corner bookies is much higher. Such bookies are even more inclined to utilize Pay Per Head businesses located offshore due to fears of running a full service operation in the state.
If you are in the bookie business, targeting Louisiana would be smart business if not for the higher than likely possibility of prosecution.
That's because Louisiana is nominally the least populous state with more than one major professional sports league franchise that includes the New Orleans Pelicans and the New Orleans Saints. The state also has 11 collegiate NCAA Division 1 programs, a higher number given its population. This includes the LSU Tigers out of Baton Rouge.
One is more likely to find bookies hanging out in a number of sports bars scattered throughout the college town of Baton Rouge. These include Twin Peaks, Walk-Ons, Ivey’s and The Station.
Another hot spot for bookies are pool halls and Baton Rouge has a few of those including Clicks and Richochets. The Tiger Sports Bar also has pool tables.
Needless-to-say, New Orleans has a ton of sports bars that include the likes of Finn McCool’s Irish Pub, Bruno’s Tavern, Cooter Brown’s, Manning’s, Lucy’s Retired Surfers and Walk-Ons, which is located right by the Superdome.
- Mary Montgomery, Gambling911.com
