LouisianaPoker - Louisiana Gambling Laws - Home Poker Games

Is Poker Legal In Louisiana?

Gambling can be a legal pastime in Louisiana as long as you carefully follow a few simple rules. Whether you are looking for private home poker games or professionally provided casino-based games, the state of Louisiana is very gambling-friendly. Read on to make sure you understand the law and learn how to keep your poker games legal.

You can find out which poker sites accept players from Louisiana by reading our US poker online guide.

Are Home Poker Games Legal in Louisiana?

Whenever the Louisiana Penal Code discusses gambling, it does so from a business perspective. In many sections, it is the business of gambling that is illegal. To make sure your poker game is not a “business” in the eyes of the state, the operator of the game (the host) must not charge a fee to play or rake the pot.

Another area that the law regulates is the location of the game. Gambling in public is illegal so you’ll need to keep your home poker games behind closed doors and out of sight. You aren’t hiding from the law, you’re just ensuring that the game cannot be considered a public nuisance.

Finally, there is one factor that is often overlooked. In the state of Louisiana, it is illegal for anyone under the age of twenty-one to gamble (most states set the age at eighteen). If your game gets busted for having minors present, the law can dish out a five hundred dollar fine, and a six month prison sentence!

Do Any of Louisiana’s Casinos Offer Poker?

Louisiana is one of the early gambling centers of the United States. In the early days of the country, games like craps, roulette, and poker became popular in Louisiana before they traveled along the Mississippi river throughout the rest of the country. Today, the citizens of the state remember and respect this legacy as avid gamblers.

There are legal casino resorts and traditional riverboat casinos that give you a chance to play all of the most popular casino games legally, and of course poker is no exception. The biggest casinos all have luxurious poker rooms that operate twenty-four hours a day and bring all of the most popular poker games to the table in a legally authorized setting.

Can I Legally Play Poker Online?

The State of Louisiana is one of the few in the union to really go after online poker with its penal code. According to line D of §90.3 “Whoever commits the crime of gambling by computer shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both.”

They’ve got an extensive set of air-tight definitions to define all terms related to “gambling by computer” and there really are no loopholes at all. There may be the question of how well they can monitor and catch online gamblers, but it is definitely a crime. The biggest crime though, is operating an online poker room. Anyone who manages, owns or aids a poker room/casino in any way “shall be fined not more than twenty thousand dollars, or imprisoned with or without hard labor, for not more than five years, or both”.