Early insights from geolocation solutions provider GeoComply show that North Carolina’s sports betting market has immense potential.
Within the first 48 hours of online sports betting in the state, GeoComply conducted more than 5.4 million geolocation checks during login from nearly 370,000 sportsbook accounts. Most of the location checks came from accounts in the state’s central area, including the cities of Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem.
“It’s early, but North Carolina is already delivering on lawmaker expectations when they legalized online sports betting last year. The state’s well-structured approach to mobile sports betting safeguards consumers and opens up significant revenue streams. With March Madness around the corner, we are excited to see continued growth,” said Lindsay Slader, GeoComply senior vice president of compliance.
North Carolina positions itself as a competitor to neighboring Virginia, which launched online sports betting in January 2021. According to GeoComply, Virginia recorded about 2 million account logins and 134,000 accounts within the initial 48 hours. North Carolina saw about 2.5 times the geolocation checks and active accounts.
Caesars Sportsbook NC started accepting online wagers a week earlier through its relationship with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The Caesars Sportsbook app began exclusively accepting mobile sports bets at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee, Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino & Hotel in Murphy and on surrounding Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal lands.
Gov. Roy Cooper signed HB 347 into law on June 14, 2023, legalizing mobile betting on horse racing, professional, college and Olympic sports and esports. It wasn’t until March 11 that North Carolina online sports betting officially launched on eight platforms.
