The two nominees for governor of South Carolina take different routes to the same place: neither rules out legal gambling. Republican Alan Wilson supports online sports betting with guardrails, while Democrat Jermaine Johnson wants the question to go before voters first.
That alone marks a shift in a state where outgoing Gov. Henry McMaster has opposed every attempt to expand gambling since taking office in 2017. The only legal gambling in the state is the South Carolina Education Lottery, which voters approved in 2000.
Wilson, the state’s attorney general, and Johnson, a state representative from Richland County, will debate Tuesday.
Atty. Gen. Wilson believes that online sports betting is already taking place in the Palmetto State.
