Even for a basketball-crazed state, North Carolina showed a tremendous surge in sports betting on the first day of round one of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
According to GeoComply, NC online sportsbooks witnessed a 51% increase compared to the previous week and a 41% increase in unique active accounts on Thursday when the Tar Heels played their opening round game.
Nearly 50% increase in betting activity for day one of March Madness
Last week, GeoComply reported that North Carolina experienced more than 5 million geolocation checks for sports betting activity within the first 48 hours of its legal online sports betting launch.
Not surprisingly, considering North Carolina is a self-proclaimed haven of college basketball, March Madness was a boon for sports betting traffic in the state on Thursday. The No. 1 seed Tar Heels handily defeated Wagner, 90-62.
Measured by geolocation checks for registration or logging into existing accounts, there was a 46% week-over-week increase in online sports betting activity in North Carolina for the first full day of March Madness. There was also a 46% increase week-over-week in the total number of unique active accounts in the Tar Heel State. That last bit of data indicates that sportsbooks are acquiring many new customers during this high point of the sports betting season.
NC sports betting launch going according to plan
Thanks to March Madness, this is one of the biggest months for total handle (wagers accepted) by sportsbooks. Regulators and lawmakers in North Carolina were motivated to debut mobile sportsbooks in time for the NCAA Tournament, a decision that’s proving wise, according to early geodata.
Sterl Carpenter, deputy director of sports betting at the NC Lottery Commission, assessed the launch as getting off “on a very positive note.”
With three more weeks of March Madness excitement, new users in NC can get NC online sports betting promos from eight operators, totaling upwards of $3,000 in bonuses for North Carolina March Madness betting.
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