CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It's been a little over a month since sports betting became legal in North Carolina.
Data from a software company that tracks the location of betting app users suggested that North Carolina was poised to be a leading sports betting market in the United States.
So how do the numbers stand? The WCNC Charlotte VERIFY team looked into it.
OUR SOURCES:
The North Carolina State Lottery Commission said during the first week of betting, a total of $198.1 million was wagered, generating $42.7 million in gross revenue.
Danny DiRienzo with GeoComply said he and his team are not surprised with the numbers coming out of North Carolina right now.
"Based on population alone, coupled with the fact that North Carolinians are rabid sports fans, we anticipated it would be a top market," DiRienzo said.
Looking at the data, DiRienzo said that after the NCAA tournament, North Carolina had about 1.3 million unique betting accounts.
"If you look at some of the biggest betting markets in the country, sports betting markets, New York, for example, during that same time period had 1.1 million unique betting accounts geo-located," DiRienzo said. "So North Carolina actually had more unique betting accounts engaged with sports books than the state of New York did."
DiRienzo said people living in South Carolina have tried, and failed, to place sports bets as well.
"Since North Carolina line has launched, we've blocked just over 830,000 attempts from South Carolina to access North Carolina sportsbook," DiRienzo said.
DiRienzo said these impressive numbers coming out of North Carolina surpass other states with a similar launch.
"Since launch, through yesterday, there's been just over 1.5 million unique sports betting accounts geolocated in North Carolina," DiRienzo said.
He said that number means about 25% of the adult population in North Carolina has engaged with sportsbooks.
"Kansas is an example I'd like to use because that's one of the highest proportions we had seen before North Carolina's launch, and they came in at around 10% of the adult population," DiRienzo said. "So North Carolina is dramatically outperforming some other market launches."
Contact Meghan Bragg at mbragg@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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