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SportsTranscript
00:00But no business in the sports betting community is good business in a place where you can only go to one spot.
00:05They continue to have a monopoly over sports betting in the Cornhusker State.
00:10Well, you say that, but I mean, every time we see a geo-comply report coming out talking about the geo-targeting or geo-pings or whatever they're tracking,
00:18they always see a cornfield over in Missouri that gets a lot of action from people in Omaha.
00:23So, you know, I don't know if they're all going to the retail spots.
00:27But yeah, in Nebraska, we had kind of high hopes for legislation to get through.
00:34Based on last year, there was a special session that there was talk of a sports betting bill that would get through to help relieve property tax burden on residents.
00:45It didn't make any noise really last in that special session.
00:49But Governor Jim Pillen came out in support of it saying, hey, this is something we should look at and do.
00:54Maybe it'll be a priority bill this year.
00:55Either case, it came out, it got some traction, it got through a committee.
01:01There was lots of opposition, which I don't think we're surprised by anymore in any of these states that are left to go online.
01:10But it still got through that committee.
01:12It got through its first of three floor votes in the Nebraska legislature, which is a unicameral body.
01:18And from that point, it was like, okay, well, these next two, you need to reach that 30-vote threshold.
01:24And there were six senators absent from that first vote.
01:29And Elliott Bostar, the senator who sponsored the bill, said, you know, I've got at least three.
01:33So, oh, there's your 30.
01:34Well, the thing that kind of throws that for a loop here is when there's a filibuster in Nebraska, you need 33 votes to get that through.
01:46And sure enough, he did not have those votes, was not sure he could meet those votes.
01:51So, he went ahead and pulled the legislation.
01:54And so, now we're waiting for next year.
01:56Now, the thing here is that if it would have passed, it would have gone to the voters in 2026.
02:02So, you know, you've got next session as well.
02:06This legislation does carry over.
02:08So, I think there's hope maybe that in the next year they can figure out how you get a couple more votes in the Senate and then get it to the ballot in 2026.
02:18There's also the thought, you know, there were a couple senators who have talked about it in committee hearings and in the local media say, you know, we want to get ahead of this.
02:28We want to get this passed because there could be a ballot initiative led by the operators.
02:33And the operators would then get to kind of pick and choose what they're going for.
02:36And, of course, we saw that in Missouri this last year.
02:40They led a very expensive ballot initiative and got it to the ballot.
02:43But barely passed with 50.05% of the votes, but it still passed.
02:48But we'll see.
02:49I mean, the voters in Nebraska did approve casinos in 2020, which includes, as you mentioned, in-person sports betting.
02:56So, yeah, interesting in Nebraska.
02:58But, you know, it was one of those states that we were like, oh, this is certainly a possibility this year to go online.
03:04Of course, it fell apart here.
03:05But, hey, we'll see what happens in the next year.
03:07It may still be on the ballot in 2026.