North Carolina Lottery Commission approves March 11 as start date for legal sports wagering
By Joshua Davis
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RALEIGH, North Carolina (WXII) — Too late for the Super Bowl, but just in time for March Madness. Mobile sports betting will start before the ACC men’s basketball tournament.
The North Carolina State Lottery Commission voted Wednesday to allow operators to take mobile sports bets on March 11 at noon.
Brad Senkiw, a sports betting writer for Covers.com, says the next few months will be important for getting things off the ground.
“You know some people might get confused by the apps,” he said. “Or it takes a while to sign up for their account. So they will want to get all of that out of the way, there are always a lot of states that do this with a sort of pre-registration period. For operators and even the state, it gives them an idea of sort of what that first day is going to be like.”
He says now will also be an important time to entice more people into getting into the hype. However, not everyone is rushing to place their bets.
“Sports is so unpredictable. It’s difficult to bet on something like that,” said Jason Heyman.
While Heyman loves a good game, he says he doesn’t see the appeal of betting on it.
“You could bet on the favorite and then you know, win a little bit,” he said, “but you’d have to bet some kind of weird long shot to win any substantial money. It’s almost impossible to do that in sports.
He’s also concerned about people taking those wagers too far.
“You know, people get addicted to all sorts of stuff,” he said.” Gambling is just one more vise. There should be a concern on if the state is going to or should provide some help for those with addiction.”
Regardless, people across North Carolina will be watching upcoming games more closely. Especially with March Madness around the corner and other major sports events right down the road.
“It’s sort of the ability to kind of get it rolling and going and see what kind of issues you run into,” said Senkiw. “Make sure your regulations are working, your compliance controls internal controls, all that stuff works when football season comes along later on for the draft in April, in May and then for football season. I think it’s gonna be huge for the state of North Carolina.”
North Carolina bettors can establish and fund accounts through approved operators on March 1.
Horse racing and in-person betting will not be available on March 11.
The list of licensed operators will be posted at ncgaming.gov.
It previously announced that mobile sports betting would not begin on Jan. 8, the first day allowable under law, or by the Feb. 11 Super Bowl.
After a multiyear effort, state lawmakers gave final approval in June to legislation legalizing mobile sports betting and certain in-person sportsbooks. Gov. Roy Cooper, a proponent of legalized sports betting, signed the bill into law in Charlotte.
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