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While the US Supreme Court has now made sports betting legal in the Unite States, those residents of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina will not be able to bet the NFL in any of the state's casinos (or lack thereof) for the upcoming 2018 season. For now, a few dozen of internationally licensed sportsbooks will accept wagers from these states.
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WILL ANY OF THESE STATES ALLOW SPORTS BETTING IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
The short answer is NO.
There are not even casinos or race tracks in either South Carolina or Georgia, just to give some idea as to how unfriendly these states are to gambling.
Georgia and the Carolinas also have their own NFL franchises, making them ideal for sportsbooks.
It's just not going to happen any time soon.
North Carolina is known for conservative attitudes toward gambling and amendments would need to be made to current laws.
“Our gambling statutes go back to 1891,” said Jeff Welty, an associate professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government. “We’ve got a pretty long uninterrupted history of not allowing gambling, but the world’s changing. That history can be set aside if the General Assembly chooses to do so.”
Like North Carolina, Alabama has maintained long time hostilities towards all things gambling. That could be changing but the opposition remains steadfast.
“I dread going back into session, if I’m re-elected, knowing that there’s probably going to be fantasy sports, there’s going to be the lottery, there’s going to be sports gambling, the Vegas-type gambling,” said Rich Wingo, a Republican state representative who opposes all those things. “I just feel like we’re going to be inundated with this gambling issue.”
There is hope, even in Alabama.
“I think there’s been a change in attitude, a slight change in attitude, maybe an unwitting change in attitude,” said Don Siegelman, a Democratic former governor who proposed a state lottery, only to have voters soundly reject it in 1999. “I don’t think the evangelicals would organize and execute a plan to defeat sports betting with the same passion and enthusiasm that they mustered in 1999.”
Needless-to-say, gamblers from these states will need to rely on international websites to place all their NFL bets.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
