North Carolina issues first sports betting licences

The North Carolina State Lottery Commission has issued full online sports betting licenses to eight operators ahead of the launch of legal sports betting in the state, with 18 provisional supplier licenses also granted.

The eight operators licensed so far comprise FanDuel, BetMGM, DraftKings, Fanatics, bet365, ESPN BET, Underdog and Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise, an enterprise of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Players in North Carolina can begin preparing for the first day of sports betting on 11 March by registering and making deposits with licensed operators as of noon today (Eastern Standard Time).

“Issuing the first interactive sports wagering operator licenses today represents a major milestone in establishing legal sports betting in North Carolina,” said North Carolina State Lottery Commission chair Ripley Rand. “North Carolinians can begin signing up for accounts on their mobile devices on Friday with the confidence they will soon be able to make wagers on their favorite sporting events securely and responsibly.

“We’re just 11 days away from the start of sports betting in North Carolina and we will be working every day between now and then to see that our launch is a successful one.”

At its meeting Thursday, the Commission also issued sports wagering supplier licences to GeoComply, SBTech Malta, and Sportradar, while sports wagering services providers licences were granted to Caesars Sportsbook, theScore and SDSV (Gibraltar) Limited, the latter two of which are subsidiaries of Penn Entertainment.

In addition, 18 provisional supplier licenses were awarded to the likes of IMG Arena, Genius Sports, Continent 8, Jumio, SIS, Xpoint, US Integrity, Simplebet, Banach Technologies and Aristotle.