- Sports activities betting is as soon as once more being reviewed in South Carolina
- South Carolina is one in all solely 11 states with out authorized sports activities playing
- Gov. McMaster stays against new types of playing
For yet one more legislative yr, the subject of sports activities betting is being mentioned within the South Carolina Normal Meeting.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster stands in the way in which of sports activities betting discussions within the Columbia State Home. South Carolina is one in all solely 11 states that should not have authorized sports activities playing. McMaster is against playing enlargement. (Picture: Governor’s Workplace Photograph Archive)
Senate Invoice 444, launched by Sens. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) and Matt Leber (R-Charleston) in 2025, would authorize on-line sports activities betting. The South Carolina Sports activities Wagering Fee can be fashioned to manage the expanded playing.
The carried-over sports activities betting invoice was thought-about on Wednesday by the Senate Labor, Commerce, and Trade Committee, however the laws was not put to a vote.
Every on-line sportsbook license, ought to SB444 turn out to be regulation, would value $1 million. Renewals can be yearly at $1 million. The sports activities betting invoice proposes that the state take 12.5% of the gross income generated by the web sportsbooks.
Sports activities Betting Outlier
Since Might 2018, when the US Supreme Court docket stated a federal regulation can’t permit one state — Nevada — to conduct a type of playing whereas outlawing it in all places else, 39 states and Washington, DC, have handed legal guidelines authorizing sports activities betting. South Carolina is likely one of the 11 states that haven’t.
Neighboring North Carolina has authorized sports activities playing, and a few state lawmakers within the Palmetto State say it’s time to cease funding the North Carolina authorities.
Final yr, North Carolina made $129 million off of those on-line sports activities bets. South Carolinians, a whole lot of 1000’s of them, are going throughout the North Carolina border to position bets,” Sen. Josh Kimbrell (R-Spartanburg) stated throughout the committee listening to, as reported by WYFF News.
North Carolina makes use of its sports activities betting tax proceeds to draw main occasions, foster job development, and entice funding.
South Carolina is significantly smaller than North Carolina, with about half the inhabitants. Nonetheless, proponents of sports activities betting assume such playing may generate $50 million to $60 million a yr for the state.
“That might present alternatives for extra tax reduction and supply a primary responder pay enhance. There’s an entire vary of issues,” Kimbrell added.
Governor Opposition
Together with highly effective opposition from religion leaders, South Carolina’s sports activities betting invoice faces a doable veto from Gov. Henry McMaster (R).
I’ve at all times opposed playing,” McMaster stated just lately.
McMaster has publicly voiced his hostility to efforts in Columbia to carry a business on line casino to the state. The governor, term-limited, is in his last yr in workplace.
Kimbrell has declared his candidacy to succeed McMaster. Latest polling, nevertheless, suggests he’s solely at the moment supported by about 4% of the citizens.
The 2026 front-runners at this juncture are stated to be US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-NC) and South Carolina Lawyer Normal Alan Wilson. Mace has not issued a public place on sports activities betting. Wilson, nevertheless, is adamantly opposed.
Wilson has known as on-line sports activities betting “frictionless playing” that results in monetary break and different societal hardships.
