A group of North Carolina lawmakers wants the state to start using sports betting tax proceeds to help pay high school coaches.
The bipartisan SB 657, titled the Keeping Our Coaches Act, has been sent to the Committee on Rules and Operations of the Senate for debate after receiving its first reading last week.
The brief text of the bill states that, from the start of the 2025-26 school year, $11 million of sports wagering tax revenue would be allocated to eligible public school units to boost the salaries of eligible athletic coaches. Every high school coach who is employed full-time by a school unit and receives a salary stipend sourced from non-state funds would be eligible to receive at least $3,000 per year.
The extra money for salaries would be paid on top of the local funding that units receive to pay athletic coaches, not instead of that revenue source. Any unit that used state money to replace local funds used to pay athletic coaches would not receive state funds the following year.
SB 657 adds that if not all $11 million is needed to provide adequate salary supplements for coaches, leftover funds would go towards supporting youth sports programming at in-state YMCA facilities.
North Carolina betting tax revenue already supports educational facilities
Sports betting tax revenue is used to fund numerous state services in North Carolina.
$2 million annually is dedicated to the Department of Health and Human Services for gambling addiction education and treatment programs, and another $1 million goes towards expanding opportunities in youth sports by providing money for things such as high school equipment and facility enhancements.
As well as a flat $300,000 annual payment, one-fifth of the remaining proceeds after all other designated payments is distributed among the collegiate athletic departments at 13 University of North Carolina (UNC) System institutions. North Carolina also uses some money to specifically support the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Betting tax revenue far outpacing predictions
North Carolina launched online sports betting in March 2024 and taxes licensed sportsbooks at 18% of their revenue.
A first anniversary report recently published by the North Carolina State Lottery Commission found that the Tar Heel State made more than $128 million in direct tax revenue between the market’s launch on March 11, 2024, and the end of February 2025.
That is considerably more than the estimates cited when sports betting legislation was debated in the legislature in 2023. As reported by the Associated Press, state legislative researchers had estimated that sports betting tax revenues could reach $100 million annually within five years; the state has surpassed that figure comfortably in year one.
State residents and visitors have collectively wagered more than $6.6 billion in the first 12 months of legal sports betting, and the state’s eight sportsbooks — bet365, BetMGM, Caesars, DraftKings, ESPN Bet, FanDuel, Fanatics and Underdog — have taken more than $713 million in revenue from that handle.
Figures provided to SBC Americas by the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA) show that the UNC institutions’ collective 20% cut of leftover tax revenue yielded a total of $21.6 million between April and November 2024 alone.
