The finish line is in sight for the NC sports gambling bill

Before we get into a little bit of a wall of sound, I also have to give my final wager and place your bets. We've gotten into the habit of holding over, the most exciting wager, holding it over until the two o'clock hour.

We run out of time because I'm a bad at time, man. Let the anticipation build. That's what it is. Exactly.

It's what it is. Before we do that, Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports Investigative Reporter is in studio here. I know you're going to be on the air after we get out of here.

If you're in Raleigh, you'll hear Brian and Dennis Cox. So where are we with the bill, the gambling bill? Because since I'm gambling right now, even though I never gamble, where are we with everything that's going on at the state ledge? Well, the finish line is in sight. We can see it? We can see it from where we stand. Nice.

I'm not standing. The Senate version of the bill will be in committee on Tuesday and on the Senate floor Wednesday and Thursday, and I suspect it will pass. And then it will head to the House and made some calls this morning. Some indications are it could pass the House as early as Tuesday of the next week. As is. The Senate version is going to get tweaked a little bit more.

Okay. So, okay, just refresh for people who, you know, shame on them for missing anything. But for those people who did not hear our last conversation, explain the changes to the House bill that the Senate made, and then we'll go from there. Yeah, the most there's there's a couple significant changes they made. One is increasing the tax rate from 14 to 18 percent, although that doesn't impact people who actually place a bet. The biggest one is that what I've been calling sports lounges at PNC Arena and Bank of America Stadium will be true sports books. We'll be able to come in and place a cash bet on the Hurricanes game or the Panthers game, and so you won't have to download the app. You won't have to have it on your phone if you're a casual fan who just wants to bet while you're there. Right.

You'll be able to do that. A couple other changes, more athletic programs around the state are going to get money from this. Basically everybody that isn't Carolina and state, and horse racing has been added to the bill.

Oh, man. So you won't be able to bet on horses as long as this bill passes. Can I, I can bet the fourth at Gulfstream Park.

You should be able to. If you haven't followed this that closely, horse racing does, you can't bet horse racing on the FanDuel app. Right. The tracks have done a very nice job of keeping their own, so you have to get the Twin Spires app.

Yeah. You have to get a different app that allows you to bet on that, but horse racing is now included in the bill, and I suspect it will make it to the finish line. Actually, it's probably the only thing right now. That and slots probably the only thing keeping horse racing alive. So this bill includes the historic horse racing, which is basically slot machines. Right. I've been told that may come out of the bill before it gets passed, but that is currently in the bill right now.

Both horse racing and these historic horse racing, which is basically slot machines, that only be available at an actual horse track in the state of which we do not have one at the moment. So when this bill passes the Senate, and does it figure to pass the State Senate by a lot, or is it going to be a close vote? Well, it passed the Senate in 2021. By one.

26 to 21. Right. Right. And then it failed in the House by a single vote. If anything, I believe the Senate has become more pro-gambling with some of the people that have come in and some of the people that have left. I don't think it'll get to 30 votes, which is a super majority. Not that it needs it. Governor Cooper is going to vote for this.

Cooper's pro-gambling. Right. So I don't think it quite gets to 30, but it's certainly over the 25 needed.

All right. So when it goes back to the House, first of all, you said that there might be more tweaks. What else might they change to the bill? We know they took away some of the deductions for the companies who are going to be operating these, some of the promotional deductions. They did that. I don't know if they jacked tax rates up or what. What else is likely to happen?

And then we'll talk about what the House will do. Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing to keep an eye on, or that I'm keeping an eye on, is who gets the licenses. So under the House version, the licenses were really set up for FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM to get the licenses.

Caesars, right. Under the new bill, and this gets to what the Hurricanes and Panthers and others have been pushing for, it sounds as if you have a partnership with the Hurricanes or a partnership with Charlotte Motor Speedway, you're going to get a preference when it comes to getting that license. So that really puts a lot of the leverage on the facilities and on the teams and takes a lot of it away from the operators. If you're DraftKings or FanDuel, you better cut a deal because you want to make sure you get one of those 12 licenses. Now we only hear about DraftKings, FanDuel, the top five or six, but there's about 60 of these companies out there. And you don't want to take the chance that you're going to lose a sports gambling license in the 10th most populous state in the country because you didn't partner with somebody. So I think a lot of the leverage is going to get pushed to the teams and the facilities. They won't be able to hold the license, but if you have a partnership with them, you'll get moved to the front of the line.

So Fanatics is going to start one. I think Barstool, they operate their own mobile sportsbook. But what about companies from overseas? What about Ladbrokes or William Hill? These are long-standing companies in Europe and in England that have been making book for a long time.

Yeah, I think there's one called Betway. Yeah, Betway, they sponsor West Ham. Right, there's dozens of these companies and they're going to be under pressure, I think, to negotiate a deal with the Hornets or the golf tournament, whatever, to make sure they're at the front of that line to get those licenses. So it will definitely put some leverage on the teams.

They will have more leverage when it comes to dealing with these companies. Before I let Brian Murphy go, and you might be stuck right there, otherwise you can walk in front of the camera. I don't know how many people down in the state ledge pay attention to the news coming out of England with Ivan Tony, who's a forward striker for Bradford. But he's serving an eight-month match ban by the FA, Football Association in England, because he admitted to betting on his own team to lose, not to win. He bet against his own team 13 different times over, I think it was, a five-year span. Now, sports wagering has been legalized for a long time over in Europe, and it's very popular. But he only got an eight-month ban. Calvin Ridley got suspended for an entire year for gambling on games he wasn't involved in.

It's mind-blowing to me. You're a sports fan, so we all understand we can differentiate between what Pete Rose did and what, let's say, Barry Bonds did. Steroids cheats the history of the game, but it doesn't call into question whether or not the competition is legitimate. We know the competition was legitimate. What Pete Rose did calls into question the legitimacy of the competition. Put a sports fan's hat on. Now, you're watching, not that you're going to watch Brentford, I will, but you're watching Brentford, and Ivan Tony is in front of goal. How does he hit it over the crossbar from where he was? Wait a second.

Does Ivan Tony have leads on the money line? I don't understand how he could possibly, possibly be allowed to play again. Well, yeah. And this is why Pete Rose got a lifetime ban, right? Because once you call into question the integrity of what's happening, then everything falls apart.

Then it becomes WWE. If you don't think that it's on the level, then all of sports falls apart. There's no reason to follow it anymore if it's just a soap opera that these players know ahead of time who's going to win and who's going to lose.

And that's, people often defend Pete Rose. If he bet on his team to win every single game, I might have some sympathy. There were some games where you didn't bet on his team to win. No, there are some games where he just didn't bet on his team. Right, which tells me... That's the tell. Yep. Maybe I'm not going to use my best relief pitchers today.

I know I'm not going to use my best relief pitchers today. Or he just didn't think he would. That's the tell. Yeah, I can't imagine. Eight months seems shockingly low.

Well, it was supposed to be 15, but they basically proved that he has a gambling addiction, which I'm not sure why that would change my opinion. That one seems to make it worse. If you can't stop... If you can't help himself, what are we doing?

I have no idea. I'm out of bleeps to give, I guess. Yeah, that... He's a heck of a player. We saw it with the NBA scandal, right? If the official's on the take. These are existential crises for sports leagues if you think that the competition is not fair because someone has money on the game in some way. I don't think the American leagues would put up with that. No, he wouldn't. Ivan Toney would be done. Yeah, forever. Completely finished. And I honestly don't understand how the FA is allowing him to play. Brian Murphy, WRAL Sports Investigator reporter, thank you very much.