Louisiana Governor Signs Sports Betting Tax Hike

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed House Bill 639, raising the online sports betting tax from 15% to 21.5%. According to the Louisiana State Legislature website, it becomes Act No. 298 effective Aug. 1, 2025.

According to an Associated Press story on the ABC News website, Louisiana’s sports betting tax increase will “pump more than $24 million into athletic departments at the state's most prominent public universities.”

This makes Louisiana the first state to raise taxes to fund college sports since a judge recently approved a settlement “with the NCAA allowing schools to directly pay athletes for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL),” the Associated Press reported.

Earlier this year, “Arkansas became the first to waive state income taxes on NIL payments made to athletes by higher education institutions,” the wire service noted.

According to the Louisiana Illuminator, the Louisiana schools that would benefit from the fund compete at the NCAA Division I level.

Those schools are:

• UL Lafayette
• UL Monroe
• Louisiana Tech
• LSU
• Grambling 
• McNeese
• Nicholls
• Northwestern State
• Southeastern
• Southern
• The University of New Orleans

According to the legislative website, Landry, a Republican, signed the bill on June 11, one day before the 2025 legislative session ended at the Capitol in Baton Rouge. This week, the legislative website included its first posted notation that the governor had signed the bill. By Tuesday afternoon, June 17, the governor's website did not include an update indicating he had signed the bill. 

The bill's lead sponsor was Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia.

“We love football in Louisiana – that’s the easiest way to say it,” Riser said, according to the Associated Press.