What you can and can't gamble on in NC: WRAL documentary 'The Gamble' premieres Wednesday
The new WRAL documentary The Gamble premieres on Wednesday night
and I'm here with WRAL sports investigative reporter Brian Murphy
Murph we'll get into the takeaways of the new documentary
The Gamble
But before we do it's coming out on Wednesday right
before the eve of the first round of the NCAA
tournament
We're gonna talk a little bit about what you can
and can't gamble on here in the state of North
Carolina and really how we got to this point now
that sports gambling has been legal in the state of
North Carolina for 2 years
Yeah and I've been covering it much longer than that
right The the the initial push started in late 2021
Uh after the Supreme Court legalized gambling or basically the
Supreme Court didn't legalize gambling
What it did it said each state can decide what
it wants to do
Um that this uh a gambling law that had been
passed by Congress in 1996 was unconstitutional and that you
know states had the right to decide what they wanted
to do
And it took North Carolina several years but in 2023
they finally passed the bill
2024 it became legal and we've seen an explosion in
sports gambling since
So anyone watching Wednesday night will see Murph in the
documentary
He's in it
Kristen Severance Dwayne Meyers do an excellent job of putting
everything together
Something you can gamble on in North Carolina
I know there's been legislation pushing against this
You can do the outcome of games spreads over-unders
So whether a team covers or not but it's the
player props which he's gotten some pushback specifically with collegiate
athletes where even when their team wins if they perform
well they're not getting the individual statistics that they need
for people gambling on that specific player prop
And I know there has been legislation introduced here in
North Carolina
It's been unsuccessful because those player props are just so
popular for bets to wager on
Yeah I think they're most popular in football right Anytime
touchdown score first-time touchdown score but they're they're all over
the place
They're in basketball and we've seen some pushback from college
basketball players
Armando Baycott of North Carolina talked about it during March
Madness when sports gambling was
First legalized
Isaiah Evans of Duke talked about it at the ACC
tournament just a few days ago telling me that he
already got he got a threat immediately after not a
threat
He got harassed immediately after the semifinal game a game
that they won but Isaiah Evans shot very poorly didn't
hit his points total grabbed 10 rebounds helped the team
win
He made the all-tournament team
But you know he got a message immediately after that
game that said I hope you blow out your knee
And so this is what people are dealing with
We've seen other states either in their sports gambling laws
prohibit this or go back after a a period of
time and decide we don't really want to be a
part of this
I know some states don't allow you to bet player
props on games involving teams from that state
So New York for example you couldn't bet on Syracuse
player props but you could bet on California player-player props
Um They are super popular
I think this is it's sort of an American thing
these prop bets
Um and I think in part because of our fantasy
culture you know fantasy sport culture in part because of
our you know statistical culture
Uh we really and and and in part I think
because the free agency players trade change teams in a
lot of sports especially NBA you're sort of more partial
to a player than you are a team in some
cases
And so these have become super popular
And and I don't think we're getting rid of him
even though Marsha More the the uh representative from Durham
has tried
Yeah yeah and at least in Evans' case and then
the clip with Baycott as well which is in the
documentary they seem to take it well
They understand that
As college basketball players there's gonna be some level of
scrutiny regardless of anything that they do when it comes
to gambling
Just their on-court performance
They seem to take it well but I can't even
imagine what that's like where that is just a constant
barrage where you open up your social media feed and
that's all that you see even if you you win
the game like we're talking about Duke right now winning
back to back ACC championships yet you know one single
Game performance where you didn't shoot particularly well
Like Isaiah Evans outside of Cameron Boozer has been perhaps
Duke's most important player
So that's that just shows you the scope of all
of this
There's also one other reason that um these player props
are problematic
And we've seen it in the NBA and we've seen
it in Major League Baseball and we've seen it in
college college
You know it's hard to throw a game
Nobody wants to
Throw a game
The Black Sox scandal of 1919
I mean there's been numerous cases of people throwing games
and but what if this pitch is a ball and
not a strike What if the first pitch of the
third inning I just throw a ball and not a
strike I'm not I'm not influencing the game
I mean there's probably a 50/50 chance it'd be a
ball anyhow
What if I just it's part of the strategy right
where someone knows about that in advance where maybe it's
a if you're talking baseball
Maybe it's a hitter that you don't really want to
pitch to and you want to pitch around
Right And but you can bet on that
You can bet on whether this pitch is gonna be
a ball or a strike
And so the the worry among college sports and and
I think in all sports is that these player props
then become ripe for manipulation
Somebody gets to Isaiah Evans and says and I I'm
not singling him out but somebody gets to a star
player and says hey I just need you to grab
you know uh you know under have under 6 assists
tonight
Like just don't pass as much
And we saw this in the NBA
Jonte Porter who was a bench player just asked out
of the game on my ankle my ankle is bothering
me
Um and so all of his unders hit
He he didn't play enough to to make to reach
them
And so there's the harassment issue which I think is
probably the larger issue
And then there's the manipulation issue which may not be
as prevalent but would be much more damaging to the
sport if it came out that that players were you
know deliberately trying to not perform so they could some
of their buddies or someone else could make some money
The fact that this is regulated though helps catch that
as well
So that's another wrinkle to all of this Murph of
everything that you just said of having this regulated by
the state and by regulators is arguably better than that
if people were betting and gambling offshores where you don't
have the same regulations to where they can actually catch
someone
Acting or performing or throwing a game
Yeah they talk about these irregular betting habits
Like right all of a sudden a bunch of money
is dumped on a on a Mac a Mid-American Conference
basketball game or a MAC basketball game
The the they catch it
They they see these irregular betting patterns and that's how
they've caught some of these cases in in the pro
sports
Um but that is the the exact argument
You've just articulated it well
This is the exact argument that Lawmakers make that uh
those in the industry make say look if not for
us you wouldn't be catching these things
They would still be happening but you wouldn't catch them
So here in North Carolina you cannot gamble on say
a political outcome from a race uh uh a political
race which we'll see here again in November
Uh online casinos are also not legal in North Carolina
so we're talking about saying playing like blackjack or poker
on your phone or mobile device
So that's something that you cannot
Gamble on but then we've seen the emergence of calci
If you could just briefly explain how calci is legal
here in the state of North Carolina
Yeah so there's a there's a lot of things there
Let's we'll talk about calci first
Calci is uh one of these prediction markets
They're not the only one
Poly market there are some others um
These are serving as they call themselves prediction markets in
this
Thus they're not regulated by sports gambling laws in states
They've opened up in all 50 states
Some states have been successful in in shutting them down
But these are things you can bet on what the
price of oil is going to be on a date
in the future
You can bet on what the Dow Jones is going
to be
I mean we've we've seen news stories about uh will
Maduro be ousted as president of Venezuela by a certain
date
Low and this is just rife for insider trading
I mean there are people who know these things
Like there are knowable facts here in advance right right
Or they know that an operation has been ordered to
strike Iran or to uh go after Maduro in Venezuela
Like you're betting on things that people can actually alter
the outcome of
And so
These uh you know some states have cracked down on
it
North Carolina is not one of them
They're they have not cracked down on this
They may be late to the game on this Kelsie
but the sports betting companies say hey wait we went
about it the right way right We got legalized
We went through a long process spent a lot of
money lobbying lawmakers
Uh we are regulated
We have to turn our books over to the state
We have to pay taxes to the state
How come this other market is getting in And so
now what you've seen is DraftKings and FanDuel have launched
their own prediction markets
Trying to capitalize on that
In in a state like California where sports betting is
not legal those DraftKing prediction uh app you can bet
on sports and all this other stuff
In a state like North Carolina where sports gambling is
legal there is still a DraftKings prediction market
If you want to bet on the price of wheat
uh you know at some point in the future you
can do that but they also have a separate regulated
sports gambling app
I wanted to go back to some of the things
you can't gamble on
The law is very specific
You can only gamble on things that affect the outcome
of the game
And we see that like in the Super Bowl
The coin toss you can bet on because in their
mind who gets the ball first which direction you're going
does impact the outcome of the game
You cannot bet on the length of the national anthem
or uh whether there be purple Gatorade dumped on somebody
And to be here to be clear that's here in
North Carolina's here in North Carolina specifically because the way
the law was written that those do not impact the
outcome of the game
So that's the kind of technicality in the North Carolina
law um
But these these prediction markets I think are the future
And what they say is hey we're not a sports
gambling company because we we're not the house
You know in in sports gambling uh many of you
probably know but the the house sets the odds and
then they take the wager
They hold you you bet on the Chiefs I bet
on the Patriots
The house is holding our money and then they'll pay
out which one of us wins
In uh these Calshy predictive markets they're more like a
stock market
You're sort of betting on On odds and percentages that
something is going to occur or not going to occur
and you're kind of betting against other people
And so the the that's their argument
I I'm not as well versed in it but this
is one of the arguments that people made about sports
gambling was it was just going to open the door
for these other things
You mentioned i gaming that and I think 7 states
now have i gaming
So North Carolina is not one of them either
And so what we're talking about again is with the
i gaming is the blackjack the poker on the phones
the casino games that you would see at a casino
from your mobile device yeah and those are grow like
the the income that the revenue that a state can
generate
From that dwarfs sports gambling
Just think of a regular casino
If any of you have been to Las Vegas or
many you know in-person casinos there's a tiny little sports
book and then a giant floor of all those other
games
Well well that's how it works
If the i gaming is bringing in so much more
money than sports gambling
I think the bet is uh pardon the pun that
states in need of revenue are going to say well
we have sports gambling
It's gone pretty well
No major problems
Why don't we allow those same companies to do i
gaming and that can bring in a a whole lot
more revenue
That's a tremendous transition Murph because I wanted to talk
about biggest takeaways from the documentary The Gamble
I was surprised of the state of North Carolina raising
significantly more money than anticipated
So I've got the figures right here
When it officially launched so after it became state law
it took about a year to get going
The projection was $8.5 million in the first year in
2024 $49.5 million
Then the second year the projection was $53 million
That's almost double that uh $116 million
So it's it's just that to me was one of
my biggest takeaways is the state raising significantly more money
than what was anticipated when sports gambling launched here in
the state of North Carolina
Yeah those those projected numbers come from the Legislative Fiscal
Research Division
And so they're tasked with hey this new thing is
going to happen
How much money might the state get In a lot
of ways their incentive is to be low on things
like that because you're budgeting that money and if it
doesn't show up then then the state has a budget
hole
That being said I don't think anyone foresaw just how
much people were going to gamble on sports in the
state
$13 billion has been wagered on sporting events through eight
legal operators in North Carolina in 2 years
That doesn't mean they've lost $13 billion but $13 billion
in wagers um And and you know that North Carolina
is sort of ahead of where it should be population-wise
You know if you break it all down based on
population there this is a state that loves sports and
uh increasingly loves to gamble on sports
Yeah so that was one of my biggest takeaways
I will also say this as well
We talked to former Carolina Hurricanes player Aaron Ward and
I gave him a lot of credit for having the
courage to tell his story
And the gambling issues he had even while he was
playing as an NHL player
Now it sounded like he stuck to mostly football but
the fact that he told the story of the Super
Bowl between the Patriots and Seahawks and the Malcolm Butler
interception and how much money he had riding on that
game alone
Uh it was just a fascinating perspective of the different
levels that this can apply to of not just your
average Joe or young men but someone who is making
millions of dollars as a pro athlete to where he's
gambling tens of thousands hundreds of thousands on the outcome
of these games and just how deep some people are
into sports gambling
Yeah I mean there there are so many great moments
in the document
and and Kristen and Dwayne did a fantastic job
But you know when he uh and and I won't
spoil too many of the parts of it but he
mentions in there watching the the the video board at
the game where the scores tick through right You're at
a Carolina Hurricanes game and you can see out of
town scores
And he just mentions like watching that for college football
scores or or NFL scores on a Sunday um is
an amazing detail like an amazing detail
Love this
That's how deep some people get as as you just
said
So his perspective well worth watching the documentary
Honestly I felt like I wanted to know so much
more about his perspective in this but then gambling addiction
in young men in roughly 1 in 10 young men
shows signs of problem gambling
Nearly 60% of North Carolina college students report gambling in
the past year
So it's like this is very prevalent
There are a few positives as well which we can
quickly discuss here too Murph of uh a school like
UMC Pembroke getting money that was they needed desperately in
the aftermath of COVID
Otherwise a school like that would have seen some of
its athletics teams fold to where revenue is given to
them as part of this agreement to legalize sports gambling
in North Carolina but I I thought the documentary did
a great job of explaining just like very simply where
it's like your winnings are more than and you kind
of exaggerated them a little bit and then your losings
are never as bad as it might seem of just
how prevalent that this is and just like anything I
mean I would just say moderation is the biggest thing
where it's you know it's it's not all evil
But like anything it can develop into an addiction that
can cause real real harm
Yeah I I mean a couple of things from what
you just said there like you know I often tell
people you your phone is an addictive thing already
Like I'm a I I'll be the first to admit
I am addicted to my phone in many ways
Now you're layering on another addictive thing on top of
an addictive thing
Uh you know in sports gambling on top of your
phone so you always have your phone with you
You're always getting these notifications
You got a free bet you know come come look
at the odds on this single game parlay
Like there's a promo from one of the the books
to entice you to to get you in and says
oh well I'll stop after that
But then say you lose that bet where it's like
well I did it it was free promo money
I didn't actually lose
Let me try to make another wager of the convenience
and how easy it is
Yeah it's just it's in your pocket constantly
Like there's you know there's never a time where you
can't open your phone and bet
Um and so I I what I really like about
the documentary is it sort of presents that that the
case on both sides
Here are all the good things that the state is
getting out of out of this and you mentioned
UNC Pembroke a lot of money is going to the
athletic departments at colleges across the state um needed money
at this time and and changing but but at what
cost And I think those two things are it's it's
actually society right Everything in society
There's a benefit to it and a cost
And you and politicians and lawmakers regulators always have to
weigh you know what what should we allow people to
do versus what is the cost of allowing them to
do
And that's how we get drinking laws and how we
get drug laws and how we get you know any
any kind of sin law that we have
Um But the thing you know what another part of
the documentary and and certainly this has been out there
but how gambling activates the same parts of your brain
that other addictions do
That it's not like it's not different in uh physiologically
than drinking alcohol or or taking drugs
Like it activates the same parts of your brain this
addiction does that those addictions do
And so It uh it's a really interesting topic
I I've been covering it for a long time and
I don't I I think we're only at the beginning
We're only at the beginning of this story
What was the biggest surprise for you and the Doc
Murph just considering you've been covering this very topic for
years You know what I was struck by was the
openness you know the documentary starts I think with just
a great scene during the Super Bowl
The openness and willingness of people uh much younger than
me um just to talk about how much they're betting
You know the the whatever taboo there used to be
about sports betting
is gone
Like it is everywhere
It is accepted and people are willing to be in
public on camera discussing their bets their wins their losses
Uh they're willing to talk to strangers about it
Like to me that was like a a really crystallized
how much it sort of changed
Like gambling you know oh I have an offshore
account or I've got a bookie
No now it's now it's a topic among friends
You can speak publicly about it
There's no stigma attached to it at all
And and seeing that and the way Dwayne shot it
it was terrific
But seeing all that put together sort of crystallized for
me like oh this is just as normal as anything
else in these guys' lives
I when I saw that I was like I don't
have the same risk appetite as some gamblers do when
they say they've lost hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars
It's just like man I'm devastated if I lose my
$20 wager
It's like oh man but I don't have the same
risk appetite is is where I'm at
Yeah and they and they're just so like it's like
they talk about it so casually that it um it
was stunning
It was and that part is great
Like a lot of laughs
Like I thought this documentary was funny
Parts you mentioned Aaron Ward
That part is so serious
Like uh you know I I'm blown away by by
the doc
It's the full gambit of emotions when you're gambling on
a game and it comes down to the very last
second as well right right
And you know what what's amazing and we'll have a
lot of extras around the documentary of of more interviews
that we did you know obviously the doc you can
only put some of those interviews in but uh the
passion on both sides as well
Those who think this is the ruination of sports and
Not only the ruination of sports but possibly the ruination
of like an entire generation of young men and the
the ramifications of that on American society
And then the others who are like This has been
happening forever
We're simply providing a legal forum for it uh and
and we're actually protecting customers
Like that juxtaposition of uh of the the Chicken Little's
who think the sky is falling and and the the
eternal optimists who think this is not having any impact
on society was was really is really jarring and and
compelling
And I think it's a debate that's gonna continue to
play out um you know not just on podcasts and
and documentaries but in the halls of power of this
country
Before we wrap here Murph where does this go from
here in terms of
How sports gambling is regulated is it just gonna be
more of the same more and more revenue generated from
the state What happens next now that we're two years
into this here in the state of North Carolina I
mean I think sports gambling is going to continue as
it has
What I think is next is
I gaming prediction markets
Like I think at some point just the gamification of
of everything
And we kind of see it with the stock market
We see it with uh Bitcoin
Uh like there is just this this get rich quick
appetite out there especially I think among young men
Um and I think it's only a matter of time
you know if there's a recession or states are hurting
for money that they look at iGaming they look at
prediction markets and say well this is already happening
How can we get as a state get our cut
of it And you know the introduction of i gaming
the introduction of these prediction markets I think is only
going to You you mentioned the risk your risk appetite
The risk appetite of these these people who appear in
the dock is much higher I think than than it
was for for like uh older Americans
And so these products prediction markets iGaming may appeal to
them as well
And that's something I think lawmakers are going to have
to deal with
He is WRL sports investigative reporter Brian Murphy and you
can check out his interview and commentary in the WRAL
documentary The Gamble that premieres 7:30 Eastern time
On Wednesday you can check that out on WRAL TV
over the air with an antenna
All of our digital platforms that includes WRIL.com the WRIL
app and the WRAL YouTube page
Murph thank you so much for sharing your time and
perspective and all the hard work you did not just
in the documentary but covering this issue
Pleasure talking with you today
Yeah thanks Mark
I hope people watch the gamble
If you have not already hit the like and subscribe
button on the WRIL YouTube page for Brian Murphy I'm
Mark Berggen
Thank you so much for watching everybody