Stateless and reliable load balancing using segment routing and an available side-channel may be provided. First, a non-SYN packet associated with a connection may be received. The non-SYN packet may have first data contained in an available side-channel. Next an associated bucket may be retrieved based on a hash of second data in the non-SYN packet. The associated bucket may identify a plurality of servers. Then a one of the plurality of servers may be selected based on the first data contained in the available side-channel.