People in north-central Nebraska adamantly struck down two ballot measures that would have legalized online sports wagering.
Measure 440 would have created a constitutional amendment that made online sports betting legal in the state, while Measure 441 would have created rules and authorized the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission to regulate it.
Across the state, more than 54% of the voters said no to the initiatives. In 202065% of the state’s voters approved in-person casinos at horsetracks.
“I think we finally got the message out that this was a lie,” Pat Loontjer with Gambling with the Good Life said. “They were being told a lie, just like we were in 2020, and then when they finally figured it out, they voted no.”
Gambling with the Good Life is an organization aiming to limit the expansion of gambling in Nebraska. The lie, Loontjer said, was the promise of property tax relief from online sports betting. The organizing committee in favor of the initiatives called itself Tax Relief Nebraska.
“It was just ridiculous that we could even consider that there was any property tax relief,” Loontjer said.
The Save Nebraska Sports group led by the Nebraska Family Alliance, State Auditor Mike Foley, State Treasurer Joey Spellerberg and Nebraska football coach Ron Brown also opposed the initiatives. Less than two weeks before the election, former Husker head football coach Tom Osborne and several current or former athletes wrote a letter warning voters of the risks associated with mobile betting.
“They see our state as another market and every phone as another casino,” the letter said.
Loontjer said notable figures opposing the measures helped and that online sports wagering would have hurt the finances of college-aged men the most.
“Statistics show that it’s the 18- to 24-year-old male that will use this device,” Loontjer added.
Lance Morgan is the CEO of WarHorse Casinos in Lincoln and Omaha, which has publicly supported the online sports betting initiatives. Morgan agreed that the property tax relief messaging, which he said was orchestrated by national online betting apps, didn’t hold up.
“I think that it rang a little hollow with a lot of voters, because when we did the gaming, the authorization for the casinos, we said we would do property tax relief,” Morgan said. “Now, we’ve put about $100 million into property tax relief, but that hasn’t been enough, really, to move the needle for a lot of people on their bills, because the bills just keep going up.”
Seventy percent of gaming taxes collected from casino and sports gambling currently go into a statewide property tax relief fund, and it would have been the same for online sports betting if it had been approved.
Just six counties approved of Initiative 440, with an additional county eclipsing the 50% mark on Initiative 441. Each of those seven counties border Iowa, which allows online sports wagering. In fact, South Dakota is the only border state to Nebraska that hasn’t legalized online sports betting. According to the voting data by county, those located farthest from a legal sports betting state were the most likely to vote no on the measures.
“I think … people in eastern Nebraska and on the borders understand that it’s there. You can just cross over [the state’s border],” Morgan said. “I think that if I had to do it again, I think I’d focus on hey, ‘If you’re in Western Nebraska, there really are no gaming opportunities.’”
The CEO also argued that, despite being well intentioned, the group opposing online sports wagering doesn’t understand that sports betting is already happening within the state’s borders through prediction markets. In the short term, he hopes prediction markets face legal repercussions for offering sports betting without state taxation.
Since DraftKings is already dabbling into prediction markets, Morgan said the companies that bankrolled the online betting campaign didn’t care about the loss.
“The sports betting companies did not care one bit that they lost. They really didn’t,” Morgan said. “It’s kind of a win-win situation. So, they can do it legally through mobile sports betting, or they can do it through predictive markets, except they don’t have to pay any taxes.”
In the long term, Morgan said WarHorse will try to get online sports betting approved again.
Source: nebraskapublicmedia.org
