Gambling in Louisiana: a brief history
Louisiana's modern gambling era began in 1991, when the state legislature authorized riverboat casinos along the Mississippi River and inland waterways. A single land-based casino license was carved out for downtown New Orleans the following year, eventually becoming Harrah's New Orleans (now Caesars New Orleans). Pari-mutuel horse racing has older roots, with the Fair Grounds Race Course operating since 1872 and additional tracks at Evangeline Downs, Delta Downs, and Louisiana Downs later layering in slot-machine racinos. Tribal gaming runs in parallel: the Coushatta Casino Resort near Kinder, Paragon Casino Resort in Marksville, and Cypress Bayou Casino Hotel in Charenton draw players from across the Gulf South. Statewide voters approved sports betting in a 2020 parish-by-parish referendum, with retail sportsbooks opening in late 2021 and mobile sports betting launching in January 2022. Louisiana now ranks among the most gambling-saturated states per capita, with casino, racino, video poker truck-stop, lottery, charitable gaming, and mobile sportsbook product all legal simultaneously.
SMART Recovery in Louisiana
SMART Recovery's footprint in Louisiana is smaller than GA's but growing, particularly among residents who want a secular, tools-based alternative to the 12-step model. Most Louisiana SMART meetings cover all addictive behaviors rather than running gambling-only groups, which means a person whose primary issue is compulsive sports betting will typically sit alongside members working on alcohol, opioid, or stimulant use. There are roughly 6 active SMART meetings tied to Louisiana, mostly online or hybrid, with in-person rooms concentrated in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the university corridors near LSU and Tulane. Facilitator training is national rather than local, but several Louisiana clinicians in the LACG referral network are SMART-trained and route patients accordingly. Members work through the SMART four-point program: building motivation, coping with urges, managing thoughts and emotions, and living a balanced life. Meetings are open and free, and attendance does not require abstinence from day one, which differentiates the room culture from a typical GA meeting.
State-funded recovery resources
Louisiana's problem-gambling treatment infrastructure is centered on the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling, which operates the 1-877-770-STOP helpline and maintains a referral network of state-certified counselors. SMART Recovery meetings sit alongside that network rather than inside it; the state does not directly fund SMART, but outpatient providers often recommend SMART meetings as a complement to weekly counseling. The Louisiana Gaming Control Board self-exclusion program covers riverboat casinos, Caesars New Orleans, racinos, and licensed mobile sportsbooks. SMART facilitators in Louisiana frequently encourage members to use self-exclusion as a concrete, behavioral lever, consistent with the program's emphasis on practical urge-management tools.
Louisiana state helpline · 24/7 confidential
1-877-770-STOP (1-877-770-7867)Operated by the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling
What recovery looks like in Louisiana
SMART Recovery in Louisiana attracts a noticeably different demographic than GA. Members tend to skew younger, more secular, and more likely to be in active outpatient therapy in parallel. Many arrived after a clinical assessment flagged compulsive sports betting or daily fantasy use, both of which have grown sharply since Louisiana's 2022 mobile sports-betting launch. The program's cognitive behavioral framing fits well with how younger gamblers describe their own experience: prop bets, parlays, and live in-game wagering produce dense urge-cue patterns that respond to the kind of trigger-mapping SMART teaches in its tools workbook. SMART groups in Louisiana also tend to be cross-addiction by default, which surfaces a pattern many gamblers in this state share: alcohol use at the casino, stimulant use during long online poker sessions, and compulsive gambling reinforce each other and are often easier to address together than in isolation.
6 SMART Recovery meetings in Louisiana
See the live meeting map filtered to SMART Recovery on the live meeting map, or open the full SMART Recovery hub at /meetings/smart/.