Look what the casino lobby bought with its big spending against conservatives in GOP primary | Eastern NC Now

The casino lobby spent heavily in the last Republican primary in North Carolina against conservatives and now what they get for their money is bec. oming apparent.  They even had the audacity to call their newly organized casino-funded PAC "American Conservative Fund" to fool voters.

Now, the first fruits of the casino payola has emerged.  Inserted into the Senate-drafted state budget is a provision that opens North Carolina to "prediction market" gambling with the very loosest regulation in the country.  Amendments are not allowed to the budget bill and the only way to have stopped this was to vote down the entire budget.

Draft Kings, which has a major hand in "prediction market" gambling was a major contributor to the casino PAC.

Why did conservative legislators not take up this fight?  The casino lobby had just taken the scalps of a state senator and two representatives in the primaries who opposed them, one of whom was Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort). and also bought the victories of establishment candidates over up and coming conservatives in several open seat primaries.  In Kidwell's race, they spent many thousands of misleading TV ads against him, and they did similar things in other districts.  Kidwell had been the chief legislative leader who blocked Phil Berger's infamous casino bill last legislative session, and so the casino lobby joined another special interest, Big Ag. to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the seat for their puppet.  Things like that have an intimidating effect on other legislators.

https://dailyhaymaker.com/is-this-what-that-gambling-pac-bought-during-ncs-march-primaries/