The Cornhusker State is one step closer to mobile sports betting this week after lawmakers reluctantly moved forward a bill expanding the state’s gaming options. If passed into law, LR20CA would allow up to six gaming operators to partner with Nebraska horse racing venues to offer mobile sports betting across the state. But LR20CA still has a long way to go until it becomes a law.
For starters, the bill must meet the approval of at least two-thirds of the the state’s lawmakers’, who operate in a single house system. Because of the quirks of Nebraska’s political structure, the bill must also survive three separate floor votes. And all that is to say nothing of the actual opposition to, and hesitation surrounding, the introduction of mobile sports betting to the state’s gaming ecosystem.
Commenting in the Kearney Hub, Sen. John Cavanaugh (D-Omaha) laid out his trepidations surrounding the bill saying, “I really don’t think we’ve had a good amount of time to get a sense of what the impact is of the expansion of gambling in general in Nebraska, and now we’re going to open it up to sports betting, which you can do from your living room.” he said.
“And you saw the advertisements during the Super Bowl. It’s, ‘Bet. Bet. Bet.’ It’s all impulse … Jeepers, I can see people getting into real trouble with this,” he added.
Cavanaugh’s worries might run up against a wall of people saying that Nebraska already has mobile sports betting thanks to the Busiest Cornfield in America, an isolated spot on the Nebraska/Iowa border where players thwart geo-fencing.
It’s estimated the mobile sports betting could bring $32 million annually to Nebraska’s state budget.