Is THIS what that gambling PAC *bought* during NC’s March primaries?

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During this year’s primaries, we told you about American Conservative Fund throwing around some big money in GOP primaries for North Carolina General Assembly seats.  Something called DK Crown Holdings – an entity tied to gambling giant DraftKings — appeared to be the big spender in the ACF’s election activities. American Conservative Fund ran ads promoting the reelection of Phil Berger, as well as for and against other Republican candidates for the General Assembly.

This all had folks really scratching their heads.  What was this all about?

Well, it appears Andrew Dunn – Raleigh’s favorite GOP scribbler right now – is nibbling around the edges and getting very very close to the answer:

North Carolina was hardly a pioneer when it legalized online sports betting. By the time the first bets were placed here in 2024, more than half the country had already moved in that direction.

Prediction markets are a different story. With a short section in the new state budget, North Carolina appears to have become the first state to expressly welcome prediction market gambling while giving up virtually all state authority to oversee it.

While it’s largely been overlooked, this is a fundamental statement about who should control a rapidly growing form of gambling and whether North Carolina intends to have much of a say at all.

When it goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2027, it would place North Carolina at the most permissive edge of an unsettled national fight over gambling, federal power and state regulation. […]

Prediction market gambling involves betting on questions like: Will The Wolfpack score 30 or more points this half? Will The Chiefs score a touchdown in the fourth quarter?  Will the first basket made in the second half be a three pointer?  

Those kind of things.

Prediction market gambling is one of the hot things out there sweeping across the country.  And guess what?  DraftKings – the big spenders from our March elections — does prediction markets.  They make a lot of money from them and are hoping to make a lot more. 

Perhaps one of those grand juries currently looking at lobbyists and legislators and distillery trips can take a gander at this.

I know the folks on Jones Street think of themselves as *representatives*.  The problem IS — they seem to be mainly representing whomever puts the most zeroes on those campaign donation checks.