Online Sports Betting Statistics Updated November 2026

Human Written & Fact Checked · Updated

100 North Carolina Sports Betting Statistics for 2026

How much of North Carolina's betting activity becomes public revenue, and how widely do residents participate? Operator accounts answer the financial question. Population surveys reveal a different picture of participation, with substantial differences between demographic groups.

This page connects the latest completed fiscal year, the following fiscal quarter and a recent adult survey. A separate prelaunch poll supplies historical context. Wagering turnover, personal betting frequency and policy support remain distinct measures throughout.

Headline figures

  • FY2026: Total mobile stakes: $7,623,390,043. (NC Lottery Commission, Jul 2026)
  • FY2026: Mobile gross wagering revenue: $794,751,177. (NC Lottery Commission, Jul 2026)
  • FY2026: Estimated mobile wagering tax proceeds: $143,055,213. (NC Lottery Commission, Jul 2026)
  • September 2026: Total stakes: $718,178,752. (NC Lottery Commission, Oct 2026)
  • July–September 2026: Estimated tax proceeds: $40,255,976. (NC Lottery Commission, Oct 2026)
  • October 2026 survey, since-launch betting: All adults, no legal sports bets: 63%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • October 2026 survey, since-launch betting: All adults, five or more legal sports bets: 14%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • October 2026 survey, since-launch betting: Women, five or more legal sports bets: 8%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • October 2026 survey, since-launch betting: Ages 35–49, five or more legal sports bets: 21%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • October 2026 survey, since-launch betting: Urban residents, five or more legal sports bets: 22%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • June 2023, before mobile launch: All voters supporting: 66%. (Elon University, Jun 2023)
  • June 2023, before mobile launch: Agreed legalization would generate useful taxes: 77%. (Elon University, Jun 2023)

What did North Carolina's completed fiscal year generate?

Turnover alone exaggerates the amount of money retained in a betting market. The commission's accounting separates customer stakes, promotional play, settlements and public receipts, giving each a different role in the financial picture.

What is included in the annual wagering total?

The completed fiscal year runs from July through June. Paid and promotional wagering are separate reporting categories, while cancelled or void wagers identify activity removed from valid settlement. The regulator retains operator adjustments in its final annual totals. Consequently, readers should quote the published totals instead of reconstruct an alternative estimate from rounded monthly entries. These are market flows across licensed interactive operators, not deposits made by a known number of individual residents. Repeated bets funded from earlier winnings can contribute to turnover. The winnings line describes payouts across the reporting period. It does not identify which customers finished ahead, how their balances changed, or whether promotional credit was withdrawable. Those questions require customer-level evidence beyond this financial return.

How much wagering occurred in the closing month?

June provides a monthly checkpoint within the completed fiscal year, not an independent annual market estimate. The paid and promotional categories describe the origin of wagering funds, while the cancellation line addresses settlement status. They should remain separate when comparing operator reports. An increase in promotional play can change total turnover without implying the same change in customer cash deposits. All figures below concern June mobile activity. The month sits within the annual period shown above. Its figures should therefore not be added to the annual totals. The commission's report also warns that its full-year numbers include adjustments, so simple arithmetic across visible monthly rows may not exactly reproduce the published annual accounting.

What did June payouts and revenue show?

June's winnings and gross wagering revenue describe different sides of settlement. Estimated tax proceeds are the commission's reported public-revenue estimate for that month, subject to the reporting and tax framework then in effect. These amounts do not disclose individual customer results or operator profit after marketing, payroll and other business costs. The source publishes these lines together because a headline stake total cannot explain the distribution of money by itself. Use the payout line for customer returns, the gross-revenue line for the wagering account, and the tax estimate for the public-revenue measure. None is an interchangeable synonym for market size. A monthly result can also reflect the timing and outcome of sporting events, so extrapolating a single month into a full year would introduce an unsupported forecast.

What changed in the latest fiscal quarter?

The latest report advances the financial picture beyond the completed year. Keep its preliminary monthly accounts intact: the reporting window and tax estimates matter as much as the headline volume.

What did July's opening-month return report?

July opened the following fiscal year with a complete set of wagering and settlement lines. Its cancellation and winnings categories explain why gross revenue differs from the total volume of bets. The tax figure is quoted directly from the regulator instead of recalculated using a rate assumed to apply uniformly across the quarter. The report remains a preliminary operator-return series, with final tax filings potentially adjusting the outcome. These amounts concern regulated interactive activity only. They do not measure unlicensed betting or resident participation.

How did the August accounting compare?

August supplies the middle observation in the latest quarterly report. Comparisons with adjacent months use the same source edition, which helps avoid mixing later revisions into one month but not another. Stakes, cancellations, winnings and gross revenue remain distinct financial measures. The tax estimate should be read as the published amount, not a constant percentage inferred from another reporting period. A lower monthly total does not establish a lasting change in demand. Sports scheduling, settlements and promotional activity can all influence comparisons; this return does not isolate their effects.

What does September add to the quarterly picture?

September closes the first fiscal quarter, whose totals are year-to-date observations instead of a full-year forecast. The source's PDF is authoritative here: an accompanying news summary repeated an earlier winnings figure, so the report table supplies the amount used below. All quarter figures concern July through September. The published tax estimates span a transition in the applicable framework. They are retained as reported instead of imposing one retrospective calculation across every month.

Which demographic groups reported different participation patterns?

Demographic comparisons are most useful when the denominator stays visible. These rates describe people within each group, instead of the demographic composition of the betting audience.

How did gender and age groups compare?

  • Men, no legal sports bets: 54%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Men, five or more legal sports bets: 21%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Women, no legal sports bets: 72%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 18–34, no legal sports bets: 44%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 18–34, five or more legal sports bets: 22%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 35–49, no legal sports bets: 46%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 50–64, no legal sports bets: 80%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 50–64, five or more legal sports bets: 6%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 65+, no legal sports bets: 88%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Ages 65+, five or more legal sports bets: 5%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)

The October survey reports both non-participation and repeated participation within each group. The since-launch estimates remain descriptive. Some repeated-participation findings appear in the takeaways; the remaining comparisons follow. Age bands should be quoted exactly as published. These results do not track the same people as they age. They cannot establish whether differences arise from access, sporting interests, disposable income or other factors.

How did reported participation differ across race groups?

  • White adults, no legal sports bets: 68%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • White adults, five or more legal sports bets: 13%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Black adults, no legal sports bets: 53%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Black adults, five or more legal sports bets: 23%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Hispanic adults, no legal sports bets: 47%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Hispanic adults, five or more legal sports bets: 7%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)

The race-group findings compare rates within the source's named categories. They do not assign causes to those differences or estimate each group's share of total wagering. Both the non-participation and repeated-participation answers are retained to show the range of reported behavior. These are weighted survey estimates, and smaller subgroup bases warrant caution. They should not be generalized into assumptions about an individual resident. The questionnaire's legal-betting wording also means that these observations cannot be read as rates of all gambling, unauthorized betting, or gambling disorder. The financial returns elsewhere on the page contain no corresponding demographic breakdown of stakes or losses.

What did education and income comparisons show?

  • High school group, no legal sports bets: 65%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • High school group, five or more legal sports bets: 10%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Some college group, no legal sports bets: 68%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Some college group, five or more legal sports bets: 14%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Four-year college degree group, no legal sports bets: 57%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Four-year college degree group, five or more legal sports bets: 20%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Income below $40,000, no legal sports bets: 71%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Income $40,000–$80,000, no legal sports bets: 63%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)
  • Income above $80,000, no legal sports bets: 54%. (SurveyUSA, Oct 2026)

Education and income provide separate survey comparisons. Education findings cover non-participation and repeated participation; income findings concern non-participation only. Categories retain the source labels instead of being smoothed into an artificial trend. The estimates do not show that education or income caused the reported behavior. Nor do they measure affordability: a frequency response has no stake amount, household budget or debt outcome attached to it.

What did voters think before mobile betting launched?

Historical opinions help explain the debate around legalization, but they are not current participation estimates. Elon's prelaunch survey records what voters expected and supported before the later market results were observable.

How did prelaunch support vary by gender and age?

Elon surveyed self-reported registered voters in June 2023, before North Carolina's mobile market opened. The overall support figure appears among the takeaways; the opposition and demographic figures below complete that historical picture. The sample was recruited through an online opt-in panel, so these estimates should retain their original survey context. The age bands differ from those in the later adult participation survey. Directly comparing their percentages would mix populations, questions and category boundaries. Support for legal availability also does not imply an intention to place a bet.

How did support differ across other voter groups?

The remaining cross-tabs show historical support within the report's race, income, party and education categories. They are not measurements of present-day opinion, and the source's income labels are reproduced without interpolating the gap between its published bands. Each percentage uses the named subgroup as its base. These are separate subgroup cuts, not mutually exclusive segments that can be added together. A respondent can appear in a race category, an income category and a party category at the same time.

What outcomes did voters expect from legalization?

  • Agreed legalization would burden poor people: 39%. (Elon University, Jun 2023)
  • Agreed legalization would reduce illegal bookmaking: 70%. (Elon University, Jun 2023)
  • Agreed legalization would endorse something morally wrong: 33%. (Elon University, Jun 2023)

The policy statements asked voters whether they agreed with possible consequences of legalization. The tax-related expectation appears among the takeaways; the other attitudes below show that support and concern could coexist. These are opinions recorded before launch, not an evaluation of what subsequently happened. The illegal-bookmaking statement cannot prove a later reduction in unauthorized activity. Likewise, the concern about poorer residents does not quantify actual losses or identify a causal effect on household finances. The moral statement records an evaluative view instead of a clinical or economic outcome. A responsible comparison with later evidence would require measures designed for those outcomes, consistent populations and a credible evaluation method. Here, the poll is historical context for the policy debate while the later administrative and survey sources describe different aspects of the operating market.

Glossary

Methodology and sources

Every figure on this page comes from the organisation that produced it: regulators, statistics offices, public bodies, research institutes, and companies reporting their own data or surveys. Each one links to the original report or dataset and carries its release date. Survey results keep their population and fieldwork period, and financial figures keep the measure the producer used. Figures from different producers are not added together or ranked against each other. The page is reviewed monthly and updated when a producer releases newer data.