Nearly $200 Million Bet In First Week Of Legalized NC Sports Betting

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s been a busy few weeks for gamblers in North Carolina and the early numbers prove it.

The North Carolina Lottery reports that in the first week sports betting was legal, bettors placed $198,000,000 in wagers. An analyst with BetCarolina tells me about $80,000,000 of that was through promotional wagers, the rest was real money.

Steve Bittenbender calls this “as good of a start” as anyone could have expected and it will only get better for the near future.

“We’re expecting that the NCAA tournament, even this week as well with the sweet 16 will probably match or be higher because, those are the bigger tournaments and those tend to  attract more attention  as the tournament goes on,” explained Bittenbender.

In the first 12 hours of sports betting being legal on March 11th, nearly $24 million dollars were wagered.