Each pin represents someone placing a bet in the first hour sports gambling went live in North Carolina on March 11, 2023. (Source: NC Lottery Commission)
A proposal to allow gamblers to deduct losses on their state income taxes moved swiftly through a North Carolina House committee Tuesday on a divided but bipartisan vote.
Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), a gambling opponent and one of House Bill 14’s sponsors, said the bill is” about fairness to taxpayers” and not about gambling.
Since online sports betting became legal in North Carolina last March, more than $6 billion has been wagered, according to state reports published before the Super Bowl.
The bill’s sponsors said allowing gamblers to deduct their losses, capped at winnings, will align state policy with federal tax law.
Rep. Bryan Cohn (D-Granville), said he agreed state policy “should follow federal guidance.”
An official calculation of how much tax revenue the state would lose if the bill becomes law was not available online.
At a committee hearing last week, Rev. Mark Creech, lobbyist for the conservative group Return America, said allowing the tax deductions would encourage gambling as he urged the committee not to approve it.
In prepared remarks he was not invited to give on Tuesday, Creech wrote the bill would be a “gift to the gambling industry, enabling them to keep addicted individuals on the hook — the very people who generate their profits — rather than protecting the average citizen who gambles.”
Some House Commerce and Economic Development Committee members voted against the bill on Tuesday, but not enough to stop it from moving it to its next step, the House Finance Committee.