Two years ago, Senate leader Phil Berger sought to pass legislation to bring casinos to North Carolina, including one to his home county to counter a gambling complex opening just across the border in Danville, Virginia.
That was big news. North Carolina had banned casinos, except for those U.S. law allows on land owned by Native American tribes, for more than two centuries.
Draft legislation he and House Speaker Tim Moore discussed with reporters would have opened three lower-income counties to casinos. Three favored counties — Anson, Nash and Berger’s home of Rockingham — were each roughly an hour’s drive from one of the state’s three biggest population centers. Officials in all three were eager for economic growth.
