Target date for statewide legalized sports betting in NC is just in time for March Madness
For the first time, legalized gambling on the ACC and NCAA basketball tournaments will be possible statewide in North Carolina this March.
The N.C. Lottery Commission, the governmental body that oversees legal sports wagering in the state, voted unanimously Wednesday morning to allow mobile and sports betting to begin at noon on March 11.
That’s one day before the ACC tournament begins in Washington, D.C., on March 12. The NCAA tournament brackets will be announced March 17 with tournament play beginning March 19.
The decision on the start date came after General Assembly passed a sports betting bill last summer and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed it into law on June. 14. Since then, the lottery commission has worked on the logistics of handling legal sports bets. The law said sports betting could begin as early as Jan. 8 but no later than June 15.
“At the beginning of this project,” Sterl Carpenter, the lottery commission’s deputy executive director of gaming compliance and sports betting, said during Wednesday’s meeting, “the commission directed staff to implement sports betting as soon as practical and to do it in a complete, professional, transparent manner and with the highest standards of integrity. We’ve done our best to meet this directive in a few short months.”
The law allows the state to grant licenses for up to 12 sports wagering operators. Already, companies such as Caesars, ESPN Bet, Bet MGM, bet365, DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and Underdog Sports have applied. As operators and regulators work through the law’s requirements, the commission has yet to grant a final Certificate of Compliance with any operator.
Under the sports wagering law, the state will tax sports wagering revenue at 18%.
As part of Wednesday’s vote, approved operators will be allowed to set up accounts for the N.C. betting market beginning March 1. That’s also when bettors will be able to set up funding mechanisms for their accounts ahead of the March 11 start date.
Bettors must be 21 and wagers must be placed within state boundaries. Geolocation technology will be used to ensure bettors are in the state when placing mobile bets.
While mobile betting can be done on smartphones, the sports betting law allows for physical sportsbooks to be established at sporting arenas that house professional teams or events, including Raleigh’s PNC Arena, Bank of America Stadium, the Spectrum Center and Quail Hollow Country Club in Charlotte and Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord.
The NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes purchased the Backyard Bistro restaurant across from PNC Arena and are partnering with Fanatics to open a sportsbook there. Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Country Club, the site of the pro golf’s WellsFargo Championship annually, is partnering with ESPN Bet to open a sportsbook. The NBA’s Charlotte Hornets are partnering with bet365 for a Spectrum Center sportsbook.
Carpenter is confident the framework will allow for a smooth mobile betting launch on March 11.
“We’ve built our infrastructure,” Carpenter said. “We’ve put together the a regulatory framework from scratch and we assembled a team. To be sure, there is still work to do and we will always be working to improve the processes as they mature. But with this authorization, we are telling the public we are ready for sports wagering.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2024 at 10:31 AM.