North Carolina Online Sports Betting Will Not Launch By Super Bowl

North Carolina online sports betting will miss out on the entirety of the remaining NFL season.

Lottery Commission Chairman Ripley Rand revealed today that the state will not able able to launch online sports betting by Super Bowl LVIII which will be held on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024.

The state has far too much work to do for a Super Bowl launch to be possible, Rand said.

Too Much Remains to Be Done

The North Carolina Lottery Commission met this afternoon and Rand noted that extensive work needs to be completed before a responsible launch of North Carolina sports betting can take place. A potential Super Bowl launch, he said, is the number one question he receives about North Carolina sports betting.

“It’s important to note that the lottery commission does not control all parts of this process,” he said.

Sterl Carpenter, deputy executive director of gaming compliance and sports betting, said it is too early to announced a start date for North Carolina sports betting at this time.

“Because of the variables involved in this process, it is too early to set a date to start sports betting in North Carolina,” Carpenter noted.

This comes two weeks after Rand confirmed that North Carolina sports betting would not launch on Jan. 8, 2024, the first day the state can statutorily launch under its approved bill. Rand said the state cannot launch sports betting until all sports betting rules are approved, sports betting operators are approved, testing is completed, and the sports betting catalogue is finalized.

“Jan. 8 is the first date we can launch sports betting. But that will not, it probably won’t be the date that betting is authorized, considering everything we still have to do,” Rand said.

Committee Member Cari Boyce said the only way North Carolina could potentially launch sports betting on Jan. 8 is if the committee started to meet every day, as opposed to the weekly meetings it holds now.

License Application Period Opening Soon

Next up, the state will open its sports betting license application process for potential operators by the end of this week. The commission approved a deadline of Wednesday, Dec. 27, for all license applications. Any operator that submits a license application past that deadline will not be eligible for the state’s launch date, Carpenter said.

Hundreds of license applications, each several thousand pages long, are expected to be submitted.

After the license applications are submitted, Carpenter said a 60-day window will open for the commission to complete background checks on each applicant. If additional time is necessary, a new 30-day window can be opened.