North Carolina Launches Process for Sports Betting Applications

The North Carolina Lottery Commission has announced that it will start receiving licensing applications from sports betting operators, suppliers, and affiliates who wish to operate in its sports betting market next week.

Companies will have until December 27 to submit their applications. However, the sports betting committee has concluded that the market will not launch in time for the Super Bowl in February due to the extensive licensing and vetting processes that need to be completed beforehand.

After the December 27 deadline, the commission has until February 20 to review all the information received in the licensing process.

According to Sterl Carpenter, the Deputy Executive Director of Gaming Compliance in the Lottery's Sports Betting Committee, an early launch is unlikely due to the huge amount of paperwork that needs to be carefully examined. Each application might contain as many as 1,000 pages of documents.

The process will see the commission review the operators, their staff, and directors like usual state licensing procedures. North Carolina's regulatory body will also need to scrutinize the Written Designation Agreement between the operators and one of the sports teams, leagues, or venues in the state, as mandated by law.

We know that the betting public is very interested in knowing the date that the first batch can be made in North Carolina. There are a number of factors in determining what that date will be – the number of applications that we received, the dates that the applications are completed, the dates that the supporting information is submitted – 1000s of pages of information that we’re going to have to review.

Ripley RandChair of North Carolina Lottery Commission

Betting Market Regulations

The regulator has completed the initial set of regulations for the market. The second set of rules is currently undergoing public hearing scrutiny which has led to the removal of fantasy sports language from the regulations.

While sports betting could have begun in North Carolina on January 8, the commission acknowledged earlier in the month that it wasn’t prepared to meet the deadline. It insisted on June 15 backed by the sports betting law.

It’s simply too soon to tell. That said, we want to get a fair and responsible program up and running as soon as possible. And well before the June 15 deadline. We also want to make sure we get as much right up front as possible and learn lessons from other states that have gone through this experience. Once the law was passed in June, we got to work immediately. We’re starting from scratch and in just under six months, we’ve brought on an experienced professional to lead our gaming organization with experience in multiple states.

Carrie BoyceNorth Carolina Lottery Commission