A bill to legalize mobile sports wagering in North Carolina cleared the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday, the first step this year in allowing betting on sports from cellphones and other electronic devices.

Two amendments aimed at changing the bill failed in the Commerce Committee. One would have prohibited credit cards from being used to fund accounts and make bets. The other would have allowed betting on professional sports, but not any other games, including college.

“It is a fiction to to suggest that the amount of gambling in this state or anywhere else is fixed, and that we’re just shifting it from the illegitimate offshore place that it’s currently located to a regulated and controlled place,” said Deb Butler, a New Hanover Democrat, who voted against the bill.

“We know that gambling is going to exponentially increase in North Carolina if we go down this path.”

Butler pointed to New Jersey where the amount wagered has increased about 10 times in four years.

“Why do we want to facilitate something that we know has the capacity to destroy that many people’s families?” Butler said. “When you’ve got these unrelenting ads, and it’s constant. We know that young impressionable people are going to be particularly vulnerable.”

Of the 26 members on the committee, 15 are sponsors of the bill. There are 55 sponsors in the 120-member House, including Rep. Robert Reives, a Chatham County Democrat, who voted no on similar legislation last year.

Gov. Roy Cooper, a supporter of legalization, included $85 million from sports wagering tax revenue in his recently released two-year budget.

“A lot of people this time are not taking anything for granted,” Cooper said last week. “I think as a lot of lobbying occurred early, people got positive responses from legislators, and they didn’t do the things they needed to do to close. I think this time nobody is taking anything for granted.”

Under the bill, as currently written. mobile sports wagering could begin in North Carolina on Jan. 1. Tax revenue would be allocated to various interests in the state, including the athletic departments at seven public colleges. Rep. Zack Hawkins, a Durham Democrat, said supporters will amend the bill to add UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Greensboro and Western Carolina to the athletic departments that receive funding.