There's always news when it comes to legislating the sports gambling industry. Here's what you need to know about new sports gambling legislation in the US over the past week.
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Texas Keeps Lottery Alive
The state lottery was nearly abolished in Texas last week. Abolishing the lottery would have brought an end to any form of gambling in the Lone Star State and been a catastrophic blow to the sports gambling industry that hopes to open up the Southern state.
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation will now ister Texas's state lottery. A few high-profile issues put the Lottery Commission in disrepute. The main issue stems from lottery courier services such as Winner's Corner, which DraftKings owns. These lottery courier services pull in millions. Winner's Corner sold nearly $100 million in lottery tickets in 2025. According to some lawmakers, these services operate outside the law and blame the commission for not dealing with them.
For now, the state lottery remains, drawing a massive sigh of relief from sports gambling proponents statewide who hope to open Texas to legal sports gambling by 2027.
Louisiana Sports Gambling Tax Rate Won't Double
A proposal to more than double Louisiana's tax rate on online sports gambling from 15% to 32.5% was amended this week. Representative Neil Riser's HB 639 was changed to push the tax rate from 15% to 21.5%.
Louisiana is facing a massive $338 million budget hole in 2026. They hope to fill some of that hole by raising taxes on sports gambling. In 2024, the Bayou State pulled in $65 million in taxes from sports gambling, and raising the tax rate could add another $35 million.
The first three months of 2025 have seen growth in Louisiana's sports gambling sector, with a 114% year-over-year increase in gross gaming revenues from January to March, and $2.68 million in additional tax revenues.
Massachusetts Non-Compliance Incidents
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission fined sportsbooks $50,000 for non-compliance issues. The fines were dished out to BetMGM, Fanatics, FanDuel, and PENN Sports.
Fanatics and FanDuel broke the commission's ban on bets for Belarusian and Russian teams or athletes. Fanatics was fined $10,000 for accepting 127 bets, while FanDuel received a $20,000 fine for 3,871 bets.
BetMGM was fined $10,000 for taking bets on the LPGA before it was permissible to do so in the commonwealth.
PENN Sports received a $10,000 fine for breaking the voluntary exclusion protocol. The company running ESPN Bet sent marketing material to an undisclosed number of people who had placed themselves on the exclusion list.
