Only retail sports betting is legal in Nebraska, but several measures are being considered to launch the far more lucrative mobile sports betting industry in the Cornhusker State.
Let the Voters Decide
Senator Eliot Bostar is back in the ring to take another swing at getting a bill passed in the state’s unicameral legislature that would allow the voters to decide whether mobile sports betting should be allowed in Nebraska. His previous efforts failed this past summer as the special session adjourned before his bill was heard. But had the measure been put to a vote, four-fifths of the unicameral legislature would have been required to get the referendum on November 2025’s ballot.
However, now that Bostar’s most recent iteration of the bill, LR 20CA, is in the regular session, only three-fifths of the legislature would be required for the referendum to be put on the November 2026 ballot. But before any of this happens, Bostar’s bill must advance through the General Affairs Committee, where it currently sits.
A similar route was taken to bring land-based casinos and retail sports betting to Nebraska after voters approved both in a referendum on the 2020 ballot. Currently, there are four brick-and-mortar sportsbooks located at casinos in:
- Columbus
- Grand Island
- Lincoln
- Omaha
Nebraskans wagered a combined $12.6 million on the NFL, $10.4 million on college football, $8.9 million on college basketball, and $8.2 million on Major League Baseball for a total of $39.1 million, and the state received $2 million in revenues last year.
Pros & Cons
The names may change, but the arguments for and against mobile sports betting remain largely the same wherever they are being debated. Senator Bostar contends that the state could be reaping $32 million per year from taxes on mobile sportsbooks’ revenues, but instead Nebraskans are crossing state lines to make their mobile wagers and leave their losses in bordering Colorado, Iowa, and Kansas.
“It can come with real harms,” Bostar said. “The question we have to ask ourselves is, do we want that potential revenue to go elsewhere, or do we want it to go here?”
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen has given his full support to a mobile sports betting initiative and is seeking to use most of those revenues on property tax relief.
“Online sports betting is real, and it is happening in the state,” Pillen said. “Whoever wants to do it is doing it, and we’re giving all the revenue to our neighbors. I will put forth, and it will be a priority bill, in January to approve online sports betting.”
Naturally, the state’s four casinos would benefit from mobile sports betting as national online sportsbooks would have to partner with at least one of them to gain access to the market.
Lynne McNally, government relations director for the WarHorse Casino, stated, “Online sports betting would be a viable way to reduce the property tax burden since it would bring approximately $30 to $32 million per year in additional tax revenue for the state. We had the first bricks-and-mortar sportsbook in the state of Nebraska. We’re doing well and very pleased with it. However, online betting dwarfs retail in every single state they have it.”
However, there are opposing forces, and Nate Grasz, Executive Director of the Nebraska Family Alliance, is one of them. He labeled online sports betting a “direct threat” to families across the state. Grasz believes that although the state may be forgoing property tax relief, the families are being spared financial hardship due to problem gambling.
“That’s not the only thing that we’re doing. We are actively withholding a wave of familial and financial devastation for the people of Nebraska,” he said. “We all know that the house always wins, right? And so for the house to win, it’s the people of Nebraska and our own children who have to lose.”
