Nebraska Debates Legal Online Sports Betting Amid Tax Crisis
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SportsTranscript
00:00Jim, let's start in Nebraska, who has a special session going on.
00:09The talks about online sports betting, I guess, are heating up.
00:13What's the latest here in Nebraska?
00:15Yeah, of course, it's not really the time that we typically talk about potential states
00:23legalizing online sports betting.
00:25And of course, Nebraska already has retail sports betting, just at a handful of regional
00:32casinos around the state.
00:33So legalizing online sports betting in Nebraska got brought up for discussion mid last week
00:41during their special session.
00:43Governor Jim Pillen is looking for ways for the state to combat somewhat of a property
00:50tax crisis, as he called it, for its residents.
00:54So one of the options that's been put on the table is legalizing online sports betting.
01:00They talked about it at length at a general affairs committee hearing last week on Wednesday,
01:07spoke about it for about three hours.
01:09No action was ultimately taken.
01:11So we're still waiting to see if it lands on another agenda for this week, where it
01:16can be brought up for another discussion and perhaps potentially be voted on in some way
01:24to advance it forward through this special session.
01:27So what they're calling for is basically just opening it up to the online apps to come in
01:34and regulate the product that way.
01:38GeoComply, that geofencing technology company that helps out the online sportsbooks with
01:48location targeting and whatnot, they appeared at the hearing on Wednesday, pushing in favor
01:56of legalized online sports betting in Nebraska, and they said that they've seen in the first
02:01six months this year, 40,000 accounts cross state lines from Nebraska into other states,
02:0980% of those going into Iowa to place legal sports bets there.
02:14And one senator from Nebraska is saying that the state is giving up $32 million a year
02:19in sports betting tax revenue by not having it legalized.
02:25If they do take action on this bill here in the next couple of weeks, it would create
02:31a constitutional amendment and basically put it in front of voters in November.
02:37If they don't take it up now, Governor Pillan has said that he will put a priority bill
02:42in place in January to legalize it that way.
02:46If they do wait until January to start discussing it further during their typical legislative
02:51session, that would push that constitutional amendment out until 2026, which that one senator,
02:57Elliot Bostar, says would cost the state about $100 million.
03:01So nothing on the agenda so far for this week.
03:05That page on their website I checked just before we came on, Joe, has not been updated
03:08yet, though we are expecting to most likely see that come back for a little bit more discussion
03:14in the coming days and weeks and ultimately see what happens with that online sports betting
03:20legislation in Nebraska.