This was, in the parlance of the moment, a sure thing. The move toward online sports gambling, already legal in Virginia and Tennessee and dozens of other states, had been gathering momentum in North Carolina for years. A series of votes last week was supposed to push it, finally, across the line.
What happened last week was exactly what every gambler who bet on Virginia against UMBC found out the hard way: There are no sure things, especially when the North Carolina General Assembly is involved.
One of two bills necessary to move legal gambling forward failed by a single vote last Wednesday, perhaps stalling momentum until after November’s elections, maybe longer. Even that doomed effort had already been diluted by the removal of all college sports from the betting window, not just those played within the state’s borders as is the case in most other states.
