So are we passing a bill TODAY??

So, it happened? There's a bill? Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports Investigative Reporter, talked to me about a gambling bill in the state legislature.

Sir, where are we? Well, the Senate now has its own version of a sports gambling bill. It took the House-passed version and made a bunch of changes to it and then passed that out of committee. So, now we've set up a difference between the Senate version and the House version.

The Senate version much less operator-friendly, increases tax rate, does away with promotional deductions for operators. Some other changes would allow you to walk into PNC Arena and place a bet with cash. So, those sports lounges that I've talked about many, many times would become true sports books under this version of the bill.

I kind of like that aspect of it to create a sports book. Is there any indication that there would have to be a game going on or could Tom Dundon basically just throw the doors open on an NBA game or an NHL game night and people can come in and place bets even if there's no game on the ice? Yeah, those facilities could be open 24-7, 365. There is some provision about being open before and after a college game is taking place as far as the sports book.

But other than that, there's very little restrictions on when those would be open. There's also some sense that the teams, which they've been asking for all along, may be more involved in the licensing process. They won't directly get the licenses, but it feels like, and this is legislative language so it's a little bit vague, but that operators like FanDuel and DraftKings may have to partner with the teams in order to get those licenses.

All right, so if the Hurricanes had a deal with DraftKings, DraftKings would have the sports book I guess at PNC Arena, so on and so forth. The changes to the Senate bill from the House bill, do we think that it would be, is it more or less likely to get passed back through the House or are they going to make some other changes and we're going to have to go through this again? Yeah, that's the big question right now. The Senate says, hey the House is on board with these changes. The House leaders, Jason Sain in particular, has said they have kept me informed and we'll see what they pass.

There is some sense that it will certainly have to go back to the House and whether it's a conference committee where they sort of hammer out the changes together seems like one reasonable solution to where we are at this point. When you say the deductions, promotional deductions have been, I don't know if you use the term eliminated or reduced, and this is what we see a lot is that there are incentives to be a first-time customer, right? Is this what we're talking about for like what do the commercials say, you know, your first hundred dollar bet guaranteed to a thousand dollars, whatever it is, so they're basically giving you money as an incentive to start an account. Exactly. And those companies take a deduction for offering that. Are they eliminating the deduction for that and is it likely to cause them to say, you know what, if we're not going to be able to deduct this, we're not giving that to consumers?

So to your first point, yes, that's exactly what they've done. They've gotten rid of that deduction so, you know, when they say, bet five dollars, win 150 on your first bet, and try to lure customers in, they call it inducement in the legislative language. Those are eliminated. Now, they were phased out over time in the house version. Those are completely eliminated in the senate version, which means more money coming to the state of North Carolina. The impact of that is, and you may very well be right, is that the companies that come into North Carolina may be less incentivized to offer those incentives. Now, they're still competing with each other for customers, so I imagine we'll still see some of those promotions and credits or free money bets or guaranteed bets.

They have a lot of different names for them. I imagine we'll see some of them, but maybe we'll see far less than we would have if they could write off every dollar of those. See, I would think that based on how much money the sports books all take in from legalized gambling, I would argue that this is still a great investment in future customers to do this.

Anything else? Are we still on the same timeline for this starting? What else do we know about the immediate future of this?

And Brian Murphy, WRL Sports Investigative Reporter, is here. Yeah, we're still on the same timeline. January 8th is still the date that's in this bill. It's possible the Lottery Commission could need more time, but there's only up to 12 licenses. So, many of the people who have gotten those licenses have already been background checked and gone through application processes in a lot of other states.

So, I don't think it's going to take all that much time to get it up and running, but yes, January 8th is still the start date in the bill. One interesting thing, the House version would have given $300,000 annually to athletic departments at non-FBS schools in the state of North Carolina. So, anyone that played FBS football would not be included in that, but every other school would. The new bill adds Charlotte, ECU, and Appalachian State to the schools that get $300,000. So, every school except North Carolina and North Carolina State would get that $300,000 plus 10% of the pot that's left after all the other distributions are done. So, this could be a significant windfall for small schools and maybe help the athletic departments at places like ECU and Appalachian State.

Now, I'm sure they would love it. And basically, what we're doing is excluding the power five or the autonomous five, right? Right. The number of schools involved in this has gone up considerably. First, it was like the lowest five athletic department or resourced schools, and then it was all of the non-FBS schools.

And now, we've included some of the FBS schools, but not the power five guys, not the ones in the ACC. So, I imagine maybe by the time this is all said and done, every school will be included. Yeah, probably.

You're probably right. Real quick about, you say there's a limit to 12 licenses, right? I guess what we're talking about like MGM, Caesars, FanDuel, DraftKings, those kind of companies, right?

Correct, exactly. So, you know, whether it's Barstool, and there's a lot of different places where I think even Fanatics is going to start a sports book too. If we only have 11, I'm just spitballing here, could Tom Dundon create his own, could try to get his own? Yeah, the question that I would have on that, and that's one of the questions that I've asked, like can the Hurricanes get one?

Can the Panthers get one? Is some of the sports leagues, some of the sports leagues have rules about running your own. Okay. You could partner with somebody to run it, but I don't know if the NHL would allow the Carolina Hurricanes to run a sports book or to have a sports book under their title. Makes sense. I mean, the owner of the 76ers had to sell his stake when Fanatics went into the gambling market. When they were just an apparel company, he was allowed to own the Sixers.

When Fanatics went into the gambling market, he had to sell his share. You did ask about timing. I will say that the bill is expected to be in another committee tomorrow, but we'll not get to the full Senate this week, so we're looking at next week at least. All right. Well, you and I can apply for a license. We need some substantial backing, but I think we can get it. Yeah, we know people. Come on. Brian Murphy, WRAL sports investigative reporter.