Will NC sports betting actually HAPPEN??

So at the Statehouse today, the state of North Carolina is going to go through the process, maybe, hopefully, please, of legalizing sports wagering. Brian Murphy, WRAL sports investigative reporter. I could give out either of his Twitters at Murph's Turf, at Murph in NC.

He joins us on the Adam Gold show. Alright, sir, what can we expect today? Well, today is just really ceremonial. Swearing in, electing the speaker, all that fun stuff. And then they'll be back in two weeks to start the session for real. They're not even going to do anything today?

Well, if you watch the US House, electing a speaker is sometimes difficult work, so it'll be a little easier here. So then they'll be back in two weeks and they will start legislating and I expect sports gambling to come up at some point in the session. Supporters of it are very confident it's going to pass.

I say that with the caveat that last year they were very confident it was going to pass. So, which of the honorable men and women who voted against it for, I mean, confusing, confounding, maddening reasons, which of those people are no longer espousing those confusing reasons? Well, the thing to remember is there was an election in November, so the composition of the House is very different. There are 25 new members of the House. And there are different members in the Senate which did pass the bill. And so, supporters think that the new configuration, the new composition of the House is more favorable. That some of the long-time opponents had either retired or were voted out or moved up to the Senate or, you know, just the composition changes every year. They think this composition is much more favorable to sports gambling, legalizing sports gambling than the previous House was. Now, so we haven't gotten to the point where we know what the bill might look like, correct?

Right. You know, there was a bill on the floor last year. It got amended on the floor.

It got changed in the week leading up to it. I think whatever bill gets to the floor is certainly going to include gambling on college athletics, which, if you follow the issue closely, was stripped out at the very last minute on the House floor last year when this happened. The new bill will certainly include that. Yeah, I just, look, I know there has to be, there have to be people from the industry lobbying for legalization of sports wagering here because it benefits the industry. And I just have a low level of confidence that the people who are voting on this really do understand that the way to make it safer from game fixing is to make it legal. I'm not entirely sure they believe that. Yes, I don't think they believe that because it's a little counterintuitive, right?

You know, the case was made on the House floor that you could get to a college kid. Right. And so that makes sense, right?

I go to class with this guy, I say, hey, I'll give you $1,000, I'll give you $10,000, I'll give you $100,000. You know, and this is one of the issues with a lot of issues over here, right? I think there are people outside of the chamber, outside of the legislature that understands this, understand this issue a lot better than the people voting on it. And they certainly have to know about a lot of different issues, but yeah, when it comes to sports gambling, I'm not sure they understand the issue as well as outsiders or people that really, really follow it. Right, and by the way, the professional hockey team in the state of North Carolina, we know them as the Carolina Hurricanes, desperately want legalized sports wagering so Tom Dundon can build a sports book. Yeah, and they are not alone. They are not alone. There's a coalition of the teams, the Hornets, the Panthers, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Charlotte FC that are really pushing this hard.

And if it gets done, I would suspect that the teams are going to be a large part of the reason that it does get done. I hope so. Brian Murphy, all right, we're going to see the speaker, right? We haven't spent too much time watching what went on on Capitol Hill, right? No, the speaker vote should be pretty routine.

I think Speaker Moore will be re-elected speaker, but I don't think it's going to take 15 votes this time. Jeez. Go, Tim. Go, Tim. Then get it done, Tim.

All the pressures on him. All right, Brian, we will check in again very soon. Keep us up to date on what's going on. And next time we talk, we have to talk about name, image, and likeness. No doubt. No doubt. Anytime. Got it, man. Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports investigative reporter.