The author says legal sports gambling in North Carolina has quickly become a losing proposition for the state. (Photo: Getty Images/bluecinema)
Based on state numbers reported for the final six months of 2024, sports betting in North Carolina is on track to rack up more than $6 billion in annual spending. Sports betting was enacted, its sponsors said, to generate significant revenue for several university campuses and to boost the state general fund. That has not happened.
While 18% of sports betting revenue is earmarked to benefit the public good, that figure is misleading. The 18% applies to “gross revenue,” which according to the law written mostly by the gambling industry, is derived by subtracting winnings and other expenses from actual sales. That translates into an effective yield of less than 2% of net proceeds so far.
For example, the December sports betting report, according to the North Carolina Lottery Commission, shows $613 million in total sales and an estimate of only $6.4 million going to the public good. For the period of July through December, the net proceeds were just 1.8%.
Another glaring problem with sports betting is that little effort is being made to enforce the law prohibiting minors from betting, despite the fact that $2 million a year is appropriated to the Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement Division in the Department of Public Safety for precisely that purpose.
I asked a spokesperson for the Alcohol Law Enforcement agency how many people had been cited for this offense. The answer was zero. I followed up with a request about what is being done with the $2 million appropriation earmarked for this specific purpose. There was no response.
The National Council on Problem Gambling found in a study last year that three out of four college students had gambled in the past year. And worse, the NCPG study found that nearly 6% of all college students have a gambling problem and that number is growing.
Based on this data, 30,000 North Carolina students, many of them under the age of 18, will become problem gamblers and face a life of addiction, financial ruin and hopeless misery.
Suicide risk is five times higher among underage problem gamblers than any other peer group.
Two percent is a paltry price to pay for destroying thousands of young lives.
Sponsors promised a vast amount of public good from revenue generated by sports betting. Perhaps we should revisit that debate, and at least evaluate the harm it is causing.