Video gambling donations continued to flow to NC lawmakers after 2022 elections
In the weeks following last year’s General Assembly elections, the chief executive of an Illinois video lottery company bestowed more than $50,000 in campaign donations on North Carolina lawmakers who’d just won their elections.
These donations from J&J Ventures Gaming CEO Robert Willenborg helped boost post-election giving from the industry to $96,500, according to a breakdown compiled by long-time North Carolina watchdog Bob Hall. The donations come as the industry pushes for sweeping changes this legislative session to legalize slot machine-style games in restaurants and gas stations.
“It is a lot,” said Hall, a former executive director of voting rights group Democracy NC who still analyzes campaign donations. “This is a huge share of the post-election money, and it’s not an accident.”
Post-election campaign donations, which aren’t unheard of or illegal in North Carolina, can indicate something beyond interest in the election’s outcome. Between Nov. 9 — the day after last year’s legislative elections — and Dec. 12, roughly 18% of the money donated to state legislative campaigns by individuals and political action committees came from someone tied to the video poker industry, according to Hall’s numbers and further analysis by WRAL News.
These post-election donations are part of a larger universe of video poker industry donations that Hall tracked for a campaign finance complaint he filed with the State Board of Elections in late May detailing $885,000 in donations from industry executives going back to 2019.
“For comparison, $885,000 exceeds the combined total of all the contributions that the PACs of Wells Fargo, Bank of America and the NC Automobile Dealers Association handed out to North Carolina politicians and party committees in the same four-year period,” Hall wrote in that complaint letter.
The state has played whack-a-mole with the video poker industry for years, trying to outlaw machines and sweepstakes parlors with limited success, despite the North Carolina Supreme Court upholding a ban on these games in 2012. This year lawmakers, who have already legalized mobile sports gambling and may seek to authorize four new casinos, are also pondering an if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them strategy of regulating and taxing video lottery terminals or video gaming terminals.
Studies done in 2020 and 2023 predicted billions in revenue for the state if the machines were legalized. Some leaders in the General Assembly’s Republican majority are eyeing that revenue as a way to bolster tax cuts they hope to accelerate this session.
Effingham, Illinois-based J&J Gaming is registered to do business in North Carolina, but it can’t operate its machines until the state legalizes them. In the meantime, the company is recruiting locations through its website, telling potential partners they can earn $121,000 a year by installing gaming terminals. The company is also encouraging people to contact state legislators, and it registered eight lobbyists for this year’s General Assembly session.
It’s one of at least 16 entities tied to the industry with at least one registered lobbyist this session.
J&J supports lawmakers who support its industry, company General Counsel Matthew Hortenstine said. But it doesn’t expect policy changes in return for campaign donations, he said.
“One has nothing to do with the other,” Hortenstine said.
Transparency delayed
Willenborg’s donations largely favored the legislature’s Republican majority, but the giving was bipartisan. He also donated ahead of the November elections. Altogether, he spread $166,700 over about 40 different campaigns, according to filings with the State Board of Elections.
It was the second-largest pool of donations tied to a single video gambling company in Hall’s analysis, which went back to 2019. The largest came from Southland Amusement owner Robert Huckabee III and his family, who gave $187,000.
Huckabee said his company doesn’t have video poker machines in North Carolina now, and that it hasn’t for years, but it would like to. Huckabee said legalizing and regulating the industry would clean it up.
“I made my contributions to show that support,” he said. “That’s the only way to get rid of the [unregulated] games today. The legislature and the courts have been trying to get rid of them for 20 years and they can’t do it.”
Hall filed a complaint nearly two decades ago that noted Huckabee’s donations from the 2002 election cycle. That complaint helped kick off an investigation that put then-Speaker of the House Jim Black in prison. In his latest complaint, Hall suggests a similarly well organized pattern of industry giving.
He alleges North Carolina video poker companies conspired to give large sums to key lawmakers without forming a political action committee as required. He also argues they timed these donations to avoid scrutiny, with more than $230,600 in industry giving coming after Oct. 25, meaning it wasn’t disclosed in required filings until well after the Nov. 8 election.
Huckabee said he didn’t do anything wrong in 2002, or now.
Hall said the late and post-election giving looks like executives “trying to buy influence for the upcoming General Assembly.”
Lawmakers dismiss concerns
Lawmakers who received these donations waved away concerns.
House Majority Leader John Bell’s campaign got $7,400 after the election, part of the $73,400 he has collected from the video gambling industry going back to 2019, based on Hall’s tally.
Bell, R-Wayne, said donors “want to talk to you about their concerns like anybody else does,” adding that he doesn’t promise anything. If they asked for something specific, “I would laugh at them and say ‘no,’” Bell said.
As for post-election donations, Bell said they come in because campaign fundraisers go after them.
“Just because the election’s over doesn’t mean it’s over,” he said. “We start the next day trying to gear up for the next election. This stuff has gotten expensive.”
Some of the legislature’s most competitive races cost more than $1 million. Bell and other key members raise money not just for their own races, but to bolster other members of their political party.
Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, raised the most from this industry going back to 2019, according to Hall’s spreadsheet, which identified $84,500 in donations to Perry’s campaign. Almost $6,000 of that came after last year’s election.
It’s a drop in the bucket, Perry said, compared to the $1.7 million his campaign raised that cycle.
As for what donors want, Perry said it varies company to company, with different groups favoring different regulations. Talking to them is “like going to your in-laws for dinner,” Perry said. “You’re going to hear a lot of different opinions.”
Other key lawmakers got more than $35,000 from the industry as well, including House budget writer Jason Saine, Senate budget writer Brent Jackson, House Rules Chairman Destin Hall, Senate Rules Chairman Bill Rabon and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, the Senate’s top Republican.
“Senate Republicans receive contributions from thousands of individuals each cycle,” said Dylan Watts, who coordinates fundraising as the Senate Republican Caucus director. “Contributions to campaigns are not conditioned on supporting or not supporting a policy matter. Sen. Berger does not even allow policy matters and campaign contributions to be discussed in the same conversation.”
Berger raised $2.6 million through his campaign committee during the 2022 election cycle. All of those donations, and all the donations detailed in Bob Hall’s complaint, came in before the current legislative session. The latest numbers available run through Dec. 31. Campaign finance records for the first half of 2023 are due to the State Board of Elections Friday.
