The push for online sports betting in the Cornhusker State faces some legendary opposition.
Former Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne, who led the Huskers to three national championships, was among those who testified against mobile sports wagering legalization on Wednesday in Lincoln.
The Nebraska Legislature's General Affairs Committee had met to discuss five pieces of fantasy and gaming-related legislation introduced during the recently called special legislative session.
But Osborne, who spent decades as a football coach, athletics administrator, and politician in Nebraska, has been an opponent in the past of gambling expansion in the state. He is now throwing his weight against the campaign to authorize mobile sports wagering during the special session.
Osborne said he supported efforts to reduce property taxes, the stated goal of the special legislative session. However, he claimed that online sports betting would be a net loss for taxpayers, citing research showing a dollar of gambling revenue creates three dollars worth of costs, such as those associated with higher crime rates, bankruptcies, and family strife.
“And when you can pick up your phone, or get on a computer and bet as much as you want, as quickly as you want, I can guarantee you that there will be increased addiction and increased costs,” Osborne said.
Former Rep. Osborne has long been an outspoken gambling opponent https://t.co/oSNgbgpB2o
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) July 31, 2024
The legendary football coach also noted the betting controversy that rocked college sports in Iowa and the stress student-athletes are already under.
“Having been involved in athletics for most of my life, I can attest to the fact that the most intense criticism and negative circumstances that coaches and athletes have is often not just due to losing on the scoreboard, it often results from not beating the point spread, not meeting such metrics such as number of turnovers, yards lost, yards gained, points scored, etc.,” Osborne told the committee.
He also recalled his time as Nebraska’s coach, saying he used to get phone calls every Saturday night following their games, especially if they lost, and that they were not “pleasant” talks.
“So you're out there, you've got 80,000 people watching and a whole bunch more on TV, and you're 18,19, 20 years old, and you have a lot on your shoulders,” Osborne said. “And you don't need to have gambling problems exacerbate that problem.”
Whether any gaming bill reaches critical mass in Nebraska’s single-chamber (and officially non-partisan) legislature during the special session is still unclear. The General Affairs Committee took no action on Wednesday on any of the pieces of legislation that went before its members.
At the very least, though, the idea of expanding legal sports betting in the state has been floated and debated and could be raised again in future legislative sessions. Furthermore, despite the opposition of Osborne and others in the past, Nebraska now has in-person casino gambling and sports betting, which suggests there are limits to the influence of those opponents.
Gov. Jim Pillen recently convened the special session to try to lower state property taxes, leading some lawmakers to use the opportunity to introduce gaming-related legislation that may also lighten the tax burden on Nebraskans.
Betting on property tax reduction
Two proposed measures, L.B. 13 and L.R. 3CA, would authorize online sports betting in Nebraska, which has only legalized in-person wagering at brick-and-mortar casinos thus far. The latter measure would require voter approval at the ballot box, and the former would make it possible to put the question about mobile wagering to Nebraskans in November, rather than two years from now.
At the moment, 70% of tax revenue raised by retail sports betting is allocated for property tax relief. However, L.B. 13 would increase that ratio to 90%, in addition to the likelihood of raising more revenue overall due to the popularity of online sports betting.
“This is an opportunity to create a new source of tax revenue for property tax relief,” said Sen. Eliot Bostar, the bill’s sponsor, during Wednesday’s committee hearing.
Bostar said Nebraska is missing out on an estimated $32 million in annual tax revenue, which instead flows to neighboring states such as Iowa and Colorado.
Citing data from GeoComply, Bostar also said that there were more than 64,000 active mobile sports wagering accounts detected in Nebraska between Jan. 1 and July 1 of this year, despite none of the operators those Nebraskans had registered with being legal in the state as of yet.
“The demand for mobile sports betting is clear,” the senator said. “And it's in our best interest to regulate and benefit from it.”
