North Carolina Ready To Legalise Sports Betting This Week

It has been a long journey but North Carolina seems ready to legalise mobile sports betting as soon as this week. There are two Senate committee meetings this week that will discuss House Bill 347 allowing for betting on college and professional sports betting.

If the Bill passes the Senate’s finance committee and rules committee it could be voted on by the Senate as soon as Wednesday this week.

However there are expected amendments in those committees made such as the increase in tax for sports betting from 14% originally to 18% and allowing for in-person betting at certain venues.

Representative and sponsor of the bill Jason Saine believes in an interview that those changes will be passed and sent to Senate. If the Senate does pass Bill 347 it will only be live in January allowing for the named regulator the Lottery Commission to check all applications and give out the 12 licenses permitted along with ensuring all regulations toward sports betting are in place.

One interesting amendment to allowing sports betting is that anyone that owes child support in the state will not be allowed to place a bet and operators will need to check a list of “prohibited gamblers” to ensure this.

According to the bill it will cost $1 million for a five year license and apart from mobile betting kiosks at certain sporting events such as golf courses, horse race tracks and other major professional sports venues will be allowed.