North Carolina
NASCAR Expands Sports Betting In North Carolina, When Remains A Question
CONCORD, NORTH CAROLINA – OCTOBER 08: Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Jordan Brand Toyota, … [+]
NASCAR will expand its gaming footprint to include the industry’s traditional home market. When that expansion will happen, however, remains to be determined.
After years of being a taboo subject in the sport, in recent years NASCAR has sought to expand opportunities to engage with fans. One of those engagement opportunities has been gaming though such things as NASCAR fantasy leagues and last season a Powerball promotion that ran nearly the entire season culminating in a $1 million prize given away at the season’s final championship race at Phoenix.
Online sports gambling has been gaining in popularity since 2018 when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed individual states to legalize and regulate sports betting. Currently 35 states allow some form of legal sports betting, with 21 offering full online wagering, and four with more restricted mobile betting.
NASCAR has been moving towards online gambling in recent years. In 2020 they put a policy in place that prohibited drivers, owners, crew members, and officials from betting on NASCAR races and barred them from revealing any inside information for “their own gain, or for the gain of others.”
In 2021 NASCAR became the first sports league to partner with the American Gaming Association. Richard Childress Racing became the first team to jump on board signing with BetMGM as a sponsor in 2021.
Prior to the start of the 2023 season NASCAR joined with gaming partners BetMGM, WynnBET and Penn Entertainment
PENN
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – AUGUST 15: Tyler Reddick, #8 Richard Childress Racing, Chevrolet Camaro BetMGM … [+]
North Carolina passed a bill last year that authorized up to 12 legal online sportsbooks, as well as eight in-person sportsbooks at professional sports venues in the state. The law was later amended to require that each operator have a license agreement with a professional sports organization within the state. Each of those licenses carries a $1 million fee for five years as well as an 18% tax with revenues supporting many of North Carolina’s publicly funded colleges and supporting a major event fund which the state hopes to use to recruit national sports and entertainment events for additional tourism, job creation and economic impacts.
Under the new law there are currently 11 organizations qualified to partner with the legal online sportsbooks. NASCAR was listed alongside the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, and the NFL’s Carolina Panthers among others. Also listed were Charlotte Motor Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway, both owned by Speedway Motorsports.
This past week both of NASCAR’s eligible entities announced online sportsbooks partnerships.
Friday, Speedway Motorsports announced a market access agreement with BetMGM and Charlotte Motor Speedway that will allow BetMGM to bring its online sports betting platform to the state.
“We wanted to move forward into this new era of sports entertainment with a progressive sportsbook,” said Charlotte Motor Speedway executive vice president and general manager Greg Walter. “This partnership with BetMGM will bring sports fans new ways to enjoy their favorite events while expanding North Carolina’s tax base, supporting colleges and facilitating recruitment of major events for the future.”
Shortly after the Speedway Motorsports announcement, NASCAR announced they have come to an agreement with DraftKings that will allow the digital sports entertainment and gaming company to operate in the state of North Carolina.
People check out a Michael Jordan-themed Bubba Wallace race car parked outside DraftKings Sportsbook … [+]
The announcement added that DraftKings also has been named the exclusive daily fantasy sports partner of NASCAR in the United States and Canada, becomes an Authorized Gaming Operator of NASCAR, and will receive additional sponsorship benefits within the NASCAR ecosystem nationally.
“DraftKings and NASCAR have collaborated closely with each other over the years, sharing a likeminded commitment to enhancing the fan experience,” said Matt Kalish, president, DraftKings North America. “We look forward to the next chapter in our journey together and offering our leading mobile sportsbook to fans in the state of North Carolina.”
When all this will happen in North Carolina, however, remains to be seen as the formal start date for sports betting in the state hasn’t been finalized. State officials overseeing sports betting met this past week to discuss policies and rules that will take effect once the all-clear is given. The date for that all-clear though wasn’t announced.
The period for legalization and the all-clear starts Monday, January 8, though state officials said it will not in reality launch that early. A target date of March 17 was discussed which is the day the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball Tournament will begin but when the actual date will be released is still up in the air.
According to reports legal sports betting in North Carolina could generate $610.7 million in revenue for the state. NASCAR doesn’t share in any of the revenue generated from its gaming partners, instead they benefit from the marketing provided by those partners whose reach extends far beyond the sport.
For now, North Carolina residents and visitors can only bet in person at one of three tribal casinos in the state. But once the all-clear is given NASCAR could see its fans betting on races in the stands at Charlotte Motor Speedway and everywhere else in North Carolina.
North Carolina
NC Foundation at center of I-Team Troubleshooter investigation could face contempt charge
DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) — New details in an I-Team investigation into a Durham foundation accused of not paying its employees.
The North Carolina Department of Labor filed a motion in court to try to force the Courtney Jordan Foundation, CJF America, to provide the pay records after the state agency received more than 30 complaints from former employees about not getting paid.
The ABC11 I-Team first told you about CJF and its problems paying employees in July. The foundation ran summer camps in Durham and Raleigh, and at the time, more than a dozen workers said they didn’t get paid, or they got paychecks that bounced. ABC11 also talked to The Chicken Hut, which didn’t get paid for providing meals to CJF Durham’s summer camps, but after Troubleshooter Diane Wilson’s involvement, The Chicken Hut did get paid.
The NC DOL launched their investigation, and according to this motion filed with the courts, since June thirty one former employees of CJF filed complaints with the agency involving pay issues. Court documents state that, despite repeated attempts from the wage and hour bureau requesting pay-related documents from CJF, and specifically Kristen Picot, the registered agent of CJF, CJF failed to comply.
According to this motion, in October, an investigator with NC DOL was contacted by Picot, and she requested that the Wage and Hour Bureau provide a letter stating that CJF was cooperating with the investigation and that repayment efforts were underway by CJF. Despite several extensions, the motion says Picot repeatedly exhibited a pattern of failing to comply with the Department of Labor’s investigation. The motion even references an ITEAM story on CJFand criminal charges filed against its executives.
The NC DOL has requested that if CJF and Picot fail to produce the requested documentation related to the agency’s investigation, the employer be held in civil contempt for failure to comply. Wilson asked the NC Department of Labor for further comment, and they said, “The motion to compel speaks for itself. As this is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment further at this time.”
ABC11 Troubleshooter reached out to Picot and CJF America, but no one has responded. At Picot’s last court appearance on criminal charges she faces for worthless checks, she had no comment then.
Out of all the CJF employees we heard from, only one says he has received partial payment.
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Kate Barr is a Democrat.
But when voters in North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District open their ballots in the March primary they’ll find an “R” next to her name.
She is literally a RINO or Republican In Name Only.
Barr considers herself a Democrat but said she’s running as a Republican to make a point about gerrymandering.
“Fundamentally… I hate gerrymandering. That is pretty much my core motivation for everything I do in politics,” Barr told Spectrum News 1.
The district, west of Charlotte, is solidly Republican.
The current congressman won by 16 points last election.
Barr said it speaks to just how gerrymandered North Carolina is. State Republican lawmakers recently approved a congressional map that favors Republicans in 11 of the state’s 14 congressional districts.
That’s in a state that only voted for President Donald Trump by three points in 2024 and elected a Democrat for governor.
“When the North Carolina state legislature passed the new congressional maps that further gerrymandered this state it became clear there has to be a political price for this behavior,” Barr said.
This is not the first unusual campaign for Barr.
In 2024 she ran as a Democrat in a district that heavily favored Republicans. The focus again was to draw attention to gerrymandering.
Her motto was “Kate Barr can’t win.”
She did not win, losing by 30 points.
But Barr was encouraged by some of the results she saw and in November launched her campaign for Congress.
This time she decided to run as a Republican.
She’s hoping that gives her an edge because in North Carolina voters not registered with either major party, known as unaffiliated, are the largest voting block in the state, and can participate in the Democrat or Republican primaries.
“Voters understand that the way to have a say is to choose which primary is actually going to elect their leader and vote in that primary,” Barr said. “I can absolutely win in this one… because primary turnout is so low it just doesn’t take that many people showing up and saying we’ve had enough to unseat an incumbent.”
Barr faces former North Carolina Speaker of the House and incumbent Republican congressman Tim Moore. His campaign told Spectrum News 1 that “Kate Barr’s latest stunt is an insult to Republican voters. Folks know a far-left fraud when they see one, and she doesn’t belong in our primary.”
Whether she wins or not, Barr hopes to encourage a fix to gerrymandering, an issue that’s front and center in North Carolina and around the country.
“Gerrymandering is wrong no matter which party is doing it, and we need to put an end to it. Period,” Barr said. “The goal, end result, is to have an independent commission in every state made up of citizens.”
Follow us on Instagram at spectrumnews1nc for news and other happenings across North Carolina.
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