It is Time for Nebraska to Join Iowa, Legalize Sports Gambling

What if I told you that something existed that would lower your taxes, and let many people do something they enjoy legally? What if I told you that every week, lots of money from those people help lower the taxes in Iowa, because this privilege exists just across the Missouri River. Well, this is not a fake tease for a 30 for 30, this is real life, and this is the state of sports gambling in Nebraska. 

In May of last year, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), that banned sports betting in the USA outside of Nevada. It made it legal for states to introduce sports gambling if they so wished. Now, just 17 months after the ruling, 17 states have full scale, regulated sports gambling, another 26 have either passed a bill, or have had one introduced. That leaves 7 states that have made zero effort to legalize sports gambling. Nebraska is one of them. 

New Jersey was the first state outside of Nevada to legalize sports betting and tax its operators. The state now drives in over $20,000,000 a month from taxing the casinos. Earlier this year, New Jersey had more money bet on sports in a month than the state of Nevada, topping $300,000,000 in total handle in May. That same phenomenon is about to occur in Iowa, with the help of Nebraska residents. 

On August 15, full scale legalized sports gambling went into effect in the state of Iowa. In the coming days, Council Bluffs casinos Ameristar, Harrah’s, and Horseshoe all opened sportsbooks, and will all open online options soon. On August 28, ESPN reported that Ameristar casino already had a $250,000 liability on Nebraska football to win the national title, and that over 50% of the bets in the college football futures market were on Nebraska. This proves a well-known fact; that Nebraskans are about to give a large amount of money to the state of Iowa, and in the process lower taxes for all Iowans. 

Besides taxes, another reason why legalized sports gambling is good for everyone involved is because it would make catching match fixing easier. Prior to the PASPA ruling, many people wagered on sports online, at bookmakers based in the Caribbean. In 2017, Las Vegas sportsbooks reported a $4,800,000,000 total handle, while the American Gaming Association estimated that Americans gambled $150,000,000,000 offshore in that same year. That’s 31 times how much money was bet in Las Vegas, and 97% of the total market. That means that in 2017, 97% of the dollars wagered on sports in this country were wagered illegally, in a black and unregulated market. Those are ingredients for lots and lots of match fixing, and ingredients for American customers to get ripped off by sketchy books. There are some reputable books such as Bovada, BetOnline, and Bookmaker, but even they are not regulated by the federal government, and match fixing is much easier there than it is in Las Vegas. 

Thankfully, the percentage of the market that goes offshore will continue to drop as more and more states legalize sports betting, and more and more people switch from their offshore book, to a legal and regulated one. But, 100% of the sports gambling market in this state goes offshore, to a black market that is unregulated. There is a massive problem with that. It is clear that people are going to gamble on sports by any means necessary. People have always found a way to bet, no matter how challenging it was to avoid the law.  

Nobody cares that people put money in an NCAA Tournament pot, or a fantasy football league, or on a horse race. It makes zero sense that this state’s government has a problem on people putting on money weather Nebraska will cover the spread Saturday against Northwestern, or if the game will hit the OVER. It is also absurd that they want to make people send their hard earned money to an unregulated market just to do something they enjoy, and it’s even more absurd that this state does not want to lower taxes on its citizens and in the process eliminate a black market and allow people to do something they enjoy and always have done, but this time in a safe and regulated market. 

Nebraska, it’s time to legalize Sports Gambling.