NC casino bill in works, could create ‘entertainment districts,’ House speaker says

Heading into the final stretch of this year’s legislative session, House Speaker Tim Moore says there is appetite among lawmakers to “take a look at” legalizing casinos in the state.

A casino bill being drafted now, Moore said Thursday, would “go into some of the some of the poorest areas that are really having some challenges and look at creating entertainment districts.” Those districts could include gaming, shopping, restaurants and hotels, he said.

The only casinos currently allowed to operate in North Carolina are on tribal lands in the western part of the state.

With Virginia opening the door to four casinos across the state line, however, including a Caesars casino resort in Danville, just an hour-and-a-half from Raleigh, both top leaders of North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature are expressing a willingness to consider whether the state should allow more casinos to be built.

“It’s something we’ll certainly take a look at,” Moore told reporters Wednesday, saying, “There’s been a lot of conversation about some basically state-sanctioned casinos, non-tribal casinos.”

“Look at what happened in Danville, Virginia, for example, looking at putting those in some economically distressed parts of the state,” he said.

Moore said that discussions are “still in the initial stages,” but said that although a bill hasn’t been filed, there is a draft bill.

The signal of potential support from Moore, the top Republican in the House, comes after Senate leader Phil Berger said last month that in light of Virginia approving casinos across the border, particularly as close as Danville, North Carolina lawmakers should “explore whether there are some alternatives for us to to deal with” the situation.

“If you look at population centers, the real population centers are south of Danville in North Carolina,” Berger told WRAL in April. “So I think there’s a legitimate concern of a drain from North Carolina into Virginia: of dollars, of business, of people. We’ll see whether or not there’s something that that is practical for us to do in North Carolina to address that.”

Rep. Jason Saine, a high-ranking Republican who has led the effort to legalize sports betting, which cleared the House in March and the Senate on Thursday, has also indicated that lawmakers could act on legalizing casinos this session.

In April, he told WUNC that he believed the Senate would propose legislation to allow casinos in North Carolina, not just on tribal lands.

“It may be the year for that as well,” Saine said at the time.

Moore said on Wednesday that casino legislation is “certainly a possibility,” but that House Republicans need to discuss the idea within their caucus first. He also said it’s too early to talk about how many casinos the state might allow, or where they might be located.

Meanwhile, the House will hold votes to pass the sports betting bill as changed by the Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday. That means the bill could be on Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk by mid-week.

House may yet want a broader gambling package

In addition to sports betting, and anything lawmakers might end up proposing regarding casinos, another gambling bill has come up in the House, dealing with video gambling.

That bill, introduced by GOP Rep. Harry Warren of Rowan County and heard in the House Commerce Committee last week, would legalize and regulate video gambling machines such as video poker or fish games under a permitting process supervised by the state lottery commission.

The bill was debated in a committee but didn’t get a vote, and on Wednesday, Moore said he doesn’t expect it to move forward on its own.

He said he supports the bill’s main objective, legalizing video gambling to generate revenue for the state and crack down on the market of illegally operated machines at sweepstakes parlors across the state, but said he personally prefers combining it with potential legislation on casinos.

“My preference is to try and do it all in one bill. I think that makes the most sense,” Moore said. “That’s the most legislative economy, if you will, because, if you do these things, you’re going to necessarily be having to make changes, for example, to the lottery commission, you’re going to have them essentially as a lottery and gaming commission. So you want to be thinking about that when you do it, you want to do it in a comprehensive way that works.”

Still, he said, House Republicans first need to gauge what their caucus thinks of the idea.

Moore had initially said casino and video gambling legislation could be added to the sports betting bill, but on Thursday said he misspoke and clarified that any other gambling legislation, whether it’s on casinos or video gambling, would be taken up separately, and that the House would proceed with voting on concurring with the sports betting bill next week.

Berger, who spoke to reporters right after the Senate’s initial vote approving sports betting on Wednesday afternoon, said he prefers taking up each issue in a separate bill, and not tampering with the sports betting bill that could be on its way to Cooper’s desk fairly quickly.

“Members over there and members over here have worked pretty diligently on this bill,” Berger said. “We’ve got a good, strong vote, at least on second reading, hopefully have a similar vote tomorrow. House had a good, strong vote. Let’s go ahead and get this one. If there are other gaming issues, let’s deal with them separately, but we’ll see what happens. I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan contributed to this report.