Moore said he is also interested in combining casino-expansion legislation with language regulating and taxing video poker machines, which are currently illegal under state law. But while legislators debated for years the morality and economics of casinos, “that horse is kind of out of the barn” since tribal casinos opened, Moore said. It’s possible that legislators who grudgingly agreed to approve sports wagering may say no to additional gambling this year. He said he believes authorizing the creation of “entertainment districts” that offer casinos, restaurant and entertainment could be a game-changer for some regions.Ī study by a gambling research group for a North Carolina nonprofit political education organization released this year estimated commercial casinos built in Nash, Anson and Rockingham counties could generate almost $1.7 billion in gross wagering revenue annually and hundreds of millions in taxes. Moore lives in Cleveland County, where the Catawba Indian Nation opened a casino in 2021. Offering casinos on the North Carolina side of the border could be a defensive measure against losing money to Virginia while gaining revenues from visitors from other surrounding states. And a fourth is moving forward slowly in Norfolk.

Based on that law, casinos have opened in Bristol and Portsmouth in addition to Danville. Virginia lawmakers in 2020 approved legislation for five casinos to be built around the state if the projects first cleared a voter referendum. “Because the conversations are taking place, we’re a lot closer than we’ve ever been before,” Berger said, but “there are still some fairly significant hurdles” to create legislation in the final weeks of the General Assembly’s chief work session this year. They include a temporary casino that opened barely two weeks ago in Danville, Virginia, roughly 25 miles from where Berger lives in Rockingham County. The idea has gained traction as casinos have opened in Virginia near the North Carolina border. Legal sports gambling in North Carolina is available right now at the state’s only three casinos, which are operated by two American Indian tribes.īerger and Moore, both Republicans, said this week that discussions were still happening about whether to seek legislation authorizing non-tribal casinos in rural or economically disadvantaged areas as jobs and revenue generators.

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