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Just a week after the North Carolina House started looking at the video sports betting bill for the first time since 2021, Bob Hall wants a probe into donations made by coin-op firms to lawmakers. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
A complaint filed by veteran government accountability advocate Bob Hall has called on the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) to investigate whether almost $900,000 contributions made by the video gambling industry to state lawmakers between 2019 and 2022 were indeed legal.
Hall’s complaint, filed Wednesday, wants the NCSBE to look into whether the donations were coordinated and that the firms should have registered as a Political Action Committee (PAC).
The broadside from the ex-executive director of Democracy NC comes as the state’s House committee last week exhumed the failed 2021 video sports betting bill and this time proclaimed the North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) as the industry’s would-be regulator.
conspired to deliver unprecedented sums to key state legislators in a coordinated manner”
Hall’s complaint notes that many of the contributions to elected officials and candidates, which included House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, “conspired to deliver unprecedented sums to key state legislators in a coordinated manner.”
Hall also alleges that by not registering as a PAC, donors avoided disclosing their fundraising activity and circumvented limits on how much and at what frequency a PAC can give.
