The first 48 hours of NC sports betting saw a great deal of activity, including more than double that of neighboring Virginia.
Between the online NC sports betting launch at noon Monday and noon Wednesday, GeoComply recorded nearly 5.4 million geolocation checks from active betting accounts. There were nearly 370,000 active accounts.
“It’s early, but North Carolina is already delivering on lawmaker expectations when they legalized online sports betting last year,” GeoComply SVP of Compliance Lindsay Slader said in a statement. “The state’s well-structured approach to mobile sports betting safeguards consumers and opens up significant revenue streams. With March Madness around the corner, we are excited to see continued growth.”
Neighboring states take note of NC sports betting
Since Monday, nearly 6,200 sports betting accounts in South Carolina unsuccessfully attempted to access NC sportsbooks, according to GeoComply. A SC sports betting proposal has not moved this legislative session.
In the legal Virginia sports betting market to the north, GeoComply captured a little more than 2 million geolocation checks during the Monday to Wednesday time frame. Those checks came from 134,000 active accounts. Virginia sportsbooks went live in January 2021.
During September‘s Kentucky sports betting rollout, GeoComply recorded more than 2 million checks from nearly 200,000 accounts. The first two days of Ohio sports betting last January saw 11.3 million geolocation transactions from more than 783,000 accounts.
North Carolina sports betting operators
Eight online sportsbooks began taking wagers in North Carolina Monday. Those sportsbooks are:
- Bet365
- BetMGM
- Caesars
- DraftKings
- ESPN Bet
- Fanatics
- FanDuel
- Underdog
Will it be a big launch?
LSR projects North Carolina sportsbooks will take up to $7 billion in the next 12 months.
Monday’s launch came after a lengthy legislative and regulatory journey. While the operators missed this season’s lucrative NFL betting and Super Bowl betting opportunities, it does come just in time for March Madness betting.
With an NBA team and 18 Division I NCAA teams, North Carolina’s rich basketball ecosystem could end up being a big driver of wagers in the state. University of North Carolina and Duke are projected to be high seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
The North Carolina launch featured the debut of the Underdog sportsbook platform.
