Louisiana

Regulator who ushered in Louisiana gambling expansion resigns, bullish on Shreveport-Bossier

Published

8 months ago

May 13, 2024

Regulator who ushered in Louisiana gambling expansion resigns, bullish on Shreveport-Bossier

Louisiana’s top gambling regulator Ronnie Johns, who ushered in the state’s largest gaming expansion in three decades, is resigning next month to spend more time with his family.

Johns, a Republican who oversaw the addition of sports wagering to the Louisiana gambling scene, said new GOP Gov. Jeff Landry didn’t ask him to step down.

Landry is expect to appoint a new chair of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board soon.

“I’m about to be 75 years old, and Michelle and I have things we want to do, and this is a full-time job,” Johns said in an interview with USA Today Network. “It’s time.”

Johns, who lives in Lafayette, will retire after 37 years of elective and appointed public service that included a stint as the Louisiana Lottery chairman, 12 years in the state House and 10 years in the state Senate.

Former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards appointed Johns to lead the Louisiana Gaming Control Board in 2021 as the state was poised to add sports wagering to its gambling options.

Sports wagering now contributes nearly $100 million annually in revenue supporting the state budget.

“We did it the right way and in a manner that generated confidence in the future of sports betting for both players, the industry and lawmakers,” Johns said.

Johns also has courted $1 billion or more in new investment from casino companies who have upgraded or transformed their properties, from the complete rebuild of Ceasars Horsehoe Casino in Lake Charles after it was destroyed by Hurricane Laura to the Queen and Belle in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana Live! Casino in Bossier.

Those investments escalated with the recent option for Louisiana’s riverboat casinos to build landside properties.

Johns is bullish on the Shreveport-Bossier market and believes The Cordish Companies’ nearly $300 million investment into Louisiana Live! will help reverse a two-decade decline because of increased competition from Oklahoma.

“I honestly think this development will grow the entire Shreveport-Bossier market,” Johns said. “That’s been proven in the Lake Charles market. When the new Horseshoe opened there, it expanded the market rather than cannibalized it.”

Jon Cordish has promised his family’s complete renovation of the former Diamond Jacks Casino in Bossier City will transform the former property into a destination gambling, event and entertainment resort that will rival the top destinations in the country.

“It’s going to have a quality and energy that when you walk into this property, you’ll feel like you’re in a premier casino and resort in the top gaming markets, including Las Vegas,” said Cordish, a principal with The Cordish Companies, in a previous interview with USA Today Network.

Louisiana Live! will be the first land-based casino in Shreveport-Bossier.

Johns said his resignation is effective June 30.

“I will leave the board knowing that I did my work as regulator with the integrity that it calls for with fairness to the industry, but with absolute compliance of our strict gaming laws and rules that we must adhere to,” Johns said. “There comes a time in everyone’s life when they should step back and make their family the No. 1 priority. I have arrived at that point.”

More: Louisiana is banning certain sports bets: What you need to know

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

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Louisiana

A little water makes a lot of snow. Why future snow melt won’t lead to floods.

Published

5 hours ago

January 22, 2025

Press Room

A little water makes a lot of snow. Why future snow melt won’t lead to floods.

If you’ve been a weather nerd and checking the National Weather Service’s hourly precipitation tallies, you might have noticed something appears to be off with the measurements of Tuesday’s snowstorm.

Precipitation measurements are in the tenths and hundreds of an inch, though widespread measurements of the blanket of snow falling across the state are in the several inches.

Baton Rouge, for instance, had a reported 6 inches of snow by midday Tuesday, though hourly measurements from Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport only measured 0.27 inches of precipitation.

What’s the deal?

Vincent “Vinny” Brown, an LSU climatologist, said those National Weather Service precipitation measurements are in liquid amounts, not snow accumulation totals.

The ice crystals that make up snow take up more volume than liquid water, but exactly what that ratio is in any given snowstorm can involve a number of factors.

One old rule of thumb is 10-to-1, or 10 inches of snow for every 1 inch of liquid, but forecasters have developed other ways to predict snow accumulations.

The Kuchera snow ratio, for example, is a widely used statistical method that relies on the warmest temperatures in the air column to try to estimate snowfall.

But it can be a difficult task. According to the National Weather Service, factors such as the amount of ice in a snow cloud, the types of snowflakes being formed, how warm it is between the snow cloud and the surface of the Earth, and windiness can all increase or decrease the amount of snow hitting the ground.

Deep cold can push the snow-to-water ratio to as much as 20-to-1, the Weather Service says. Some academic papers published by the American Meteorological Society say that ratio can range from 3-to-1 to 100-to-1.

Phil Grigsby, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Slidell, said published snowfall tallies are measurements of actual accumulations on the ground or other surfaces that the service’s network of observers are reporting.

“Those are actual people going out and measuring them … on patio tables and decks and things like that,” he said.

He added that this difference between snow volume and water volume means the eventual melting of south Louisiana’s coating of snow is unlikely to have much of an impact on local waterways.

Grigsby added that the snow falling across south Louisiana is on the dry side and that means the snow-to-water ratio is even wider than the typical rule of thumb.

That means even less water will ultimately run off once the snow melts.

“This won’t cause any flooding issues at all,” Grigsby said.

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Louisiana

Central Louisiana residents delight in a rare snow day Tuesday

Published

13 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Press Room

Central Louisiana residents delight in a rare snow day Tuesday

Snow is not something that you see very often in Central Louisiana.

Central Louisiana woke up to a blanket of snow, and several Pineville residents were out Tuesday morning enjoying it while it lasted.

“We love it,” said Nikita Rackley, who was outside on Myrtle Street with Jayden Deslatte, 10, and his uncle Wesley Deslatte enjoying the rare snowfall.

Chris Jasper, 20, and Corneilous Hughes, 12, donned a pair of Louisiana mittens (socks) on their hands as they pelted each other with snowballs on Barrett Street. Jasper said the socks did help keep their hands warm a little bit.

“I hadn’t seen snow in years,” Jasper said.

It was the first time Hughes has seen snow in Louisiana but has seen it in Houston. He expected it to snow here on Christmas.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Jaden Wells, a Louisiana Christian University freshman psychology major from Mandeville.

The campus was closed Tuesday due to the weather, but Wells and Noah Nava, a junior education major from Newton, Texas, were outside throwing snowballs at each other and attempting to build a snowman.

The snow was not sticky enough for the snowman, so they ended up with a small mound.

“It’s perfect for snowballs though,” said Nava, showing one he just made.

“We don’t get this a lot so you’ve got to get outside and enjoy it as much as you can,” said Wells.

The National Weather Service in Lake Charles issued a Winter Storm Warning from midnight Tuesday until midnight Wednesday. A low of 14 degrees is expected for Tuesday night. Wednesday’s high is expected to be 30, with a low of 19.

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