The American Gaming Association says more than $3.1 billion will be legally wagered during this year’s NCAA basketball tournaments, a 12-percent bump from 2024. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia will devour pieces of that pie, claiming tax dollars and other fees for each bet that’s placed.
South Carolina, where sports gambling remains verboten, will have to snack on something else.
Multiple attempts have died on the vine to bring sports gambling to South Carolina, including a bipartisan attempt in 2024 by Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R-Beaufort) and Rep. Todd Rutherford (D-Columbia) to establish a basic framework.
Rep. Chris Murphy (R-North Charleston) is making another run at it, reworking a bill he hopes begins its path to approval when the legislation cranks up this week. Yet it still won’t come to life in South Carolina for at least for a year even if House Bill 3625 is approved.
Regardless, sports gambling continues to take place in one form or fashion throughout the Palmetto State. Because if someone is bound and determined to make a bet, then it’s going to happen.
For scores of South Carolinians, that means journeying across state borders. The possibility of big payouts offsets the time and mileage.
Sadly, that neighboring state is the one profiting off of South Carolina dollars.
“(During) Super Bowl weekend there were 1.3 million bets attempted in South Carolina on sports gaming apps that were denied based on geotracking,” Murphy said. “But the interesting thing is those people then got in their cars and went to North Carolina to make a bet. And it was from all over the state — people from Beaufort, Greenville, everywhere.”
Murphy is bewildered and frustrated. Who can blame him?
States were given the power to decide if they would legalize sports gambling in 2018. Since then, the stigma long associated with it has either lightened or evaporated altogether.
Essentially every major sports organization in America now views it differently or is a straight-up partner with a sportsbook. Try to remember the last game you watched that didn’t include at least one online gambling ad. Take your time.
While you were thinking, millions of dollars more in bets were placed across the country, pumping money into a variety of coffers across a variety of states.
Meanwhile, South Carolina just sat on its hands.
Big bucks, big impact
A peek over the pine curtain into North Carolina is eye-opening. Our neighbors have created something with regards to sports gambling that works.
And it doesn’t just help bankroll roads and schools and a variety of state-operated services. North Carolina’s program also flips some of that gambling money back to college sports statewide.
The program allocates up to $300,000 annually in gambling tax revenue to the athletic departments at 13 state universities and colleges. It’s only a fraction of the big number, too, that being 20 percent of the remaining proceeds.
According to the North Carolina State Lottery Commission (the body tasked with overseeing sports betting), more than $21.5 million of gambling revenue was divvied up between that baker’s dozen — each receiving an average of about nearly $1.7 million (three times initial estimates).
Incredibly, that’s also a prorated amount as it was March 2024 when sports gambling cranked up in North Carolina. Payout estimates for this year are expected to be more than $2 million apiece.
It’s especially eyebrow-raising when you consider that state’s Power 4 universities (Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest) don’t get any of the money. Two are private institutions, and the others decided they have plenty of revenue streams already. God bless ’em.
Otherwise, it’s a mix of schools ranging from Group of 5 programs to some HBCU’s that are getting major boosts. It’s the kind of money that goes a long way toward providing stability as college sports sails into murkier waters.
You have to wonder what athletic director wouldn’t embrace an extra million bucks to be more competitive, especially as the probability of paying athletes seems inevitable? To improve and modernize facilities?
Or — as the price of everything escalates — to merely keep their department solvent and a few more sports in existence?
“(Sports gambling is) occurring in our venues, it’s occurring in our communities, and it’s become just a regular form of entertainment,” said Matt Roberts, College of Charleston’s athletic director. “Why not find a way to capture some of the revenue it generates? I’d be all for it.”
Considering the source
The rub to all of this is that sports gambling isn’t merely a win-or-lose proposition. Myriad prop bets exist for every competition, allowing gamblers to wager on … well, just about anything and everything.
That includes being able to bet on individual performances in team sports. And that’s where the nasty side of things most often gets exposed, as the athletes can directly draw the attention and ire of gamblers. Ramp the pressure up tenfold when its a classmate or professor that put a few bucks down.
To its credit, the NCAA partnered with EPIC Global Solutions to operate a gambling harm educational program. It was held across 270 campuses nationwide across Division I to Division III schools.
And those seminars were mandatory for some student-athletes, including those at Winthrop University. It’s currently working on guidelines to prohibit students, faculty and staff from gambling on Winthrop sports. Purdue University is the only other institution to have such a policy.
Those would be helpful guardrails when it comes to protecting athletes. But it could create quite the juxtaposition if sports gambling ever comes to South Carolina.
Murphy says estimates of the state collecting $100 million annually from sports gambling are “very conservative.” He said the actual number might be closer to $200 million.
Winthrop, by virtue of being a public university and if South Carolina’s ultimate model emulates that of North Carolina, would presumably stand to collect a piece of that.
“The money is nice,” Chuck Rey, Winthrop’s athletic director, said, “but you've got to understand — or almost worry — about where it’s coming from.”
He’s right — the source of the money has to be considered.
But, as we continue to see so much lost revenue flowing across the border, so does its destination.