Laws permitting bingo appeared as early as 1945, when it was legalized at fairs and exhibitions in Mecklenburg County. Bingo games with prizes of $10 or less, referred to as 'beach bingo', may be run commercially with few limitations. Such organizations can also run up to two raffles per year, with cash prizes not exceeding $10,000 and non-cash prizes not exceeding $50,000. The organization must receive a bingo license from the Department of Public Safety, and may run no more than two games per week, with prizes no higher than $500. Non-profit organizations recognized by the Secretary of State are allowed to operate bingo games for fund-raising. Then, in 1835, amid a nationwide movement against lotteries, the legislature banned them. From 1809 to 1835, the legislature approved 62 lotteries. For example, a lottery to raise £200 for navigation improvements on the New River was approved in 1761, and Judge Archibald Murphey was authorized in 1826 to raise up to $15,000 in a lottery to fund his work on a book of North Carolina history. Lotteries were authorized on occasion to attempt to raise money for various good causes, as was common in early American history. tables', which the legislature called 'an evil species of gaming', were slapped with a £250 tax in 1785, and were banned entirely, along with other gaming tables, in 1791. In 1784, to raise revenue for the government, the anti-gambling law was repealed, and taxes were imposed of 8s per deck of playing cards and 10s per 'box and dice'.

A 1753 law invalidated gambling debts of any amount, forbade gambling in public, and limited a gambler's losses to 40s in a day the cap was reduced to 5s in 1763. Gambling laws appeared in North Carolina as early as 1749, when the General Assembly adopted an English statute that discouraged 'excessive and immoderate' gambling by invalidating gambling debts greater than £100. North Carolina has long resisted expansion of gambling, owing to its conservative Bible Belt culture. state of North Carolina include the North Carolina Education Lottery, three Indian casinos, charitable bingo and raffles, and low-stakes 'beach bingo'.

High stakes bingo parlors