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If you’ve been living underneath a rock, the United States — and every single state inside of it — just had elections earlier this November. It wasn’t just the President up for election either. No, sports betting was on the ballot too, both directly and indirectly.
It was directly on the ballot in a state like Missouri that legalized it via a vote count. It barely passed, but sports betting in Missouri will go into effect in 2025. This leaves 11 out of 50 states without a legalized sports betting market. South Carolina is one of those 11 states.
But South Carolina voters indirectly voted on the issue. This is because the election was also for seats in the House of Representatives and Senate for South Carolina. Now that the results are finalized, are the state’s chances of legalizing better? Or worse? Let’s try to find out together.
South Carolina Got More Red
No surprise here, “red” candidates, as in Republicans, cleaned up in South Carolina. It’s no surprise because this is the norm inside of the Palmetto State. South Carolina is your prototypical Deep South state that leans very conservative. However, this stereotype is being reinforced more and more.
After voting Donald Trump over Kamala Harris for the presidency (58 percent to 49), the state also overwhelmingly chose Republicans in Congress. Six of the state’s seven seats in the House will be held by Republicans in 2025 and onward. As for the Senate, Republicans earned a supermajority of the 46 seats available.
What does this “supermajority” mean? It means the Democrats have little to no power. Any filibusters they attempt could easily be overcome by gubernatorial vetoes. This is actually quite unprecedented in the state’s history. We mean, the Senate supermajority was the first in 150 years. Throw in Republican Governor Henry McMaster, and Southwest Carolina is truly run top to bottom by Republicans.
But what does that mean for sports betting? Welp, we don’t know for sure, but we have some gut feelings, which we’ll cover next.
How Do Republicans Feel About Legal Betting?
If betting in South Carolina will be decided by Republicans, then it’s worth wondering how the issue fares in the party. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. While some right-leaning states in the South have legalized in recent years — Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee, as an example — others have not. States like Georgia and Alabama are still against it.
But even beyond the southeastern part of the country, it’s Republican-leading states that are lagging behind Democratic ones in terms of legal wagering. Of the 11 states yet to legalize, nine of those voted for Trump over Kamala in the past election. The two exceptions? Minnesota and California. So as much as the Republicans try to position themselves as free-speech-loving moderates, they still hesitate on sports betting to a large degree.
Optics-wise, it seems sports betting has become less likely in South Carolina. The state has tried to legalize in the past, but it hasn’t gone very far. So there was already hesitation there. The latest election results only reinforce that, in our opinion. But proponents of legal betting do have one “ace up their sleeve” as we’ll get into next.
Money Could Change The Conversation
When sports betting was discussed inside of the state in the past, there was no easy comparison to make for South Carolina lawmakers. That’s now different given North Carolina legalized it in 2024. Not only that, but we now have months of data to paint a picture of the potential of sports betting in the neighboring state.
Take the latest report from the North Carolina State Lottery Commission. They just announced $612 million in sports bets were placed during the month of October. This now brings the state’s total betting handle to $4.1 billion since March, when betting officially launched. That’s not a small number by any means, and even more than North Carolina officials initially expected.
But here’s the number that matters more — $8.7 million. This figure represents how much money the state kept from taxes in October alone. North Carolina is quickly approaching $100 million in tax revenue for themselves off sports betting during 2024.
You just know South Carolina lawmakers are licking their chops at that type of money. Yes, South Carolina isn’t as populous as its neighbor to the north, but let’s be conservative and say the state could make $50 million yearly for itself off betting. Who says no to that? That’s no chump change and surely could be used to boost the state’s budget or finance programs like education.
And here’s the thing: it’s not like people are NOT betting on South Carolina. They are, likely via offshore sportsbooks. These platforms keep the money to themselves — there’s no tax kickback for the state. So South Carolina isn’t actually stopping betting by not legalizing it, they’re just not regulating it and collecting revenue.
We got a strong hunch that North Carolina’s success is the bigger variable in 2025 and onward. If South Carolina is going to get serious about the issue, it’ll be because of jealousy of their neighbors more than anything else.
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