What’s behind the push for more gambling in NC? Follow the campaign donations. | Opinion
What’s behind Republican leaders’ insistent push to legalize multiple forms of gambling — from online sports betting to casino developments — despite resistance from within their caucus and from core Republican voters, particularly evangelical Christians?
It could be years before we know the full story. After Democratic N.C. Speaker Jim Black’s conviction two decades ago, new research emerged during his sentencing hearing that helped explain his adamant defense of video poker: he pocketed a $500,000 “loan” from the industry’s top lobbyist.
Today, N.C. lawmakers are receiving a surge in campaign contributions from gambling-related donors, even as they meet in Raleigh — an eye-popping $1 million in three years, with most of that in the past year.
Here’s another factor that has yet to receive attention: A surge of gambling money is also flooding the “dark money” groups that have become increasingly important in N.C. elections.
Across the nation, leaders like N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore are increasingly relying on these so-called independent groups to win pivotal elections. The dominant N.C.-based group is Citizens for a Better North Carolina (CBNC). Since its launch in 2020, it has funneled millions to Republican operatives who are former Berger staffers for targeted mailings and attack ads against Democratic candidates.
In October 2022, CBNC received its largest donation ever from an individual — a $1 million contribution from Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire who started his Susquehanna Investment Group (SIG) with profits from his poker and race track gambling.
Citizens for a Better North Carolina used money from Yass and other donors to finance political mailers that helped defeat three Democratic state legislators whose votes in June 2022 killed a bill to authorize sports betting. Citizens for a Better North Carolina’s largest investment in a legislative race during 2022 supported Bobby Hanig, a rare member of the House Freedom Caucus who had voted for sports gambling in June.
Despite its nice sounding name, Citizens for a Better North Carolina is primarily funded by corporations through a maze of intermediaries that have flourished since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. In the case of Citizens for a Better North Carolina, 93% of its money has come from the Virginia-based Good Government Coalition, which in turn has received 92% of its money from two national organizations devoted to electing Republicans — the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) and GOPAC.
Both of those organizations raise millions of dollars each year from a variety of corporations, including tobacco, pharmaceutical and insurance companies — and my research of a decade of IRS records shows they are getting increasingly large amounts from gambling companies and associations. Donations to Republican State Leadership Committee and GOPAC from gambling interests with lobbyists in North Carolina this year topped $1.5 million from January 2022 to June 2023, more than twice what those donors gave the two organizations during 2020-2021.
The total includes: $50,000 from a unit of The Cordish Companies, which has bought land for possible casinos in Rockingham and Nash counties. It also includes $435,000 from the Sports Betting Alliance composed of BetMGM, DraftKing, FanDuel and Fanatics, which now owns the U.S. division of PointsBet. There was also $150,000 from the Illinois-based J&J Ventures and $35,000 from North Carolina-based Grover Gaming, two video-poker operators that (like Cordish) have not given before to GOPAC or RSLC.
Tim Moore and Phil Berger sit on the leadership committees of Republican State Leadership Committee and GOPAC and actively work with their donors. They tell us that gambling is a source of money for North Carolina’s future. Maybe they really just mean it’s a money source for their future.
Bob Hall is a long-time analyst of campaign finance reports and former executive director of Democracy North Carolina.
