Nebraska Voters Appear to Reject Online Sports Betting as Northeast Indiana Turns Down a Casino

Michael Johnson
By Senior writer, US gambling and regulation Published Sources linked below5 min read
The Nebraska State Capitol tower in Lincoln, seen from K Street under a clear sky, representing the state where voters weighed mobile sports betting initiatives.
The Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, seen from K Street; unofficial returns show Nebraska voters turning down Initiatives 440 and 441 on mobile sports betting. Photo: w_lemay, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Nebraska voters appear to have rejected online sports betting. Unofficial returns early Wednesday showed both Initiative 440 and Initiative 441, the paired ballot measures that would have opened the state to mobile wagering, losing by about 8 to 9 percentage points.

Voters in northeast Indiana sent a similar signal on Tuesday. Allen, DeKalb and Steuben counties each turned down a local question on allowing a casino, which under state law blocks a license in all three counties that were in the running.

What the unofficial count shows

As of shortly before 2 a.m. Central time, with 885 of 1,322 precincts fully reporting, Initiative 440 had 295,963 votes for and 353,961 against, G3 Newswire reported, citing unofficial returns. Initiative 441 had 298,662 votes for and 351,173 against.

Bar chart of the share voting no on five gambling ballot questions in unofficial returns: Nebraska Initiative 440 at 54.5%, Initiative 441 at 54.0%, DeKalb County at 64.6%, Allen County at 59.6% and Steuben County at 58.7%, with 885 of 1,322 Nebraska precincts fully reporting.
Every gambling question on the ballot in Nebraska and northeast Indiana drew a no majority in unofficial returns; Nebraska shares are calculated from reported vote counts. Source: G3 Newswire, WPTA 21Alive News.

By our calculation, that put the no side at about 54.5% on Initiative 440 and 54.0% on Initiative 441. The gap was already visible earlier in the night: at midnight, the Nebraska Examiner reported that 440 trailed 239,331 to 285,520 and 441 trailed 241,599 to 283,159.

Every one of those figures is unofficial and must still be certified. None of the reports we reviewed had a final tally as of Wednesday morning.

What Initiatives 440 and 441 would have done

The two measures were designed as a pair. Under the plan, a constitutional change (440) would have permitted online sports wagering, and a companion statute (441) would have created the licensing and regulatory framework. Neither could take effect on its own.

Sports betting is already legal in Nebraska, but only in person. Here is how the current system works, according to the Nebraska Examiner and G3 Newswire:

  • A 2020 vote opened the five racetracks already operating in the state to casino gaming.
  • Bets on sports must be made in person at one of those racetrack casinos.
  • The state takes 20% of yearly gaming revenue in tax.
  • Most of that tax, 70%, funds credits that lower property tax bills.

The ballot push came after several bills to legalize online betting failed in the Nebraska Legislature. A group called Tax Relief Nebraska then ran the petition drive that qualified both questions for the November ballot.

How the campaign played out

The fight pitted Tax Relief Nebraska against a dedicated opposition campaign, Save Nebraska Sports, whose supporters included State Auditor Mike Foley and Treasurer Joey Spellerberg. The two sides made very different cases:

  • Supporters said Nebraskans already bet online whether the law allows it or not, and that the tax revenue ends up in states such as Iowa where mobile betting is legal.
  • Opponents countered that the money would not make up for the harm of the state, in effect, promoting gambling.

Spellerberg, who won his own race for treasurer on Tuesday, used his victory remarks to hail the outcome, the Nebraska Examiner reported. He called the contest a “David and Goliath” fight and said his side had been outspent 20 to 1. In his view, voters saw past ads linking online betting to property tax cuts and recognized the tax benefit would be negligible. “Voters in Nebraska looked right past that,” he said.

Jordan McGrain, who sponsored the initiatives, said neither measure was easy to call yet but acknowledged that the picture at midnight was “pretty clear,” according to the Nebraska Examiner. He noted that comparable measures elsewhere had squeaked through by small margins, and said the arguments that worked in those states did not seem to land with Nebraska voters.

Northeast Indiana turns down a casino

In Indiana, the casino question failed in Allen County, home to Fort Wayne, by a vote of 61,310 to 41,625, with 59.6% voting no in final unofficial results, WPTA 21Alive News reported.

Front view of the domed Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana, seat of the county where the largest of three casino referendums failed.
The Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Allen County voters joined DeKalb and Steuben counties in rejecting a casino question. Photo: Charles W. Chapman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The measure also lost in DeKalb County, 7,374 to 4,043, or 64.6% against, and in Steuben County, where 58.7% of voters said no.

The ballot item, Public Question No. 3, put the same question to each county: should inland casino gambling be allowed there? The vote was required by House Bill 1038, a law passed in February that made room for one new casino somewhere among the three counties, on these terms:

  • Local voters had to sign off first in a county referendum.
  • A no vote bars the Indiana Gaming Commission from licensing a casino in that county.
  • Counties that say no are not allowed a second vote on it.

Support for an Allen County casino came from the top of local government: Fort Wayne Mayor Sharon Tucker and the county’s three commissioners urged state lawmakers by letter last December to back the idea. The Vote Yes for Allen political action committee cited a study by commercial real estate firm CBRE Group that projected upward of 2,000 permanent jobs, plus roughly 5,500 jobs during construction.

Opponents challenged those numbers. Save Northeast Indiana, a coalition that 21Alive said is made up of residents, business owners and faith leaders, wrote on its website: “CBRE says 947 of the 1,676 are direct jobs at the proposed casino. The rest are estimates of additional jobs supported elsewhere.”

CBRE says 947 of the 1,676 are direct jobs at the proposed casino. The rest are estimates of additional jobs supported elsewhere.

Save Northeast Indiana, anti-casino coalition

The group also argued that the study does not subtract jobs lost when residents shift spending away from local restaurants, hotels and other businesses. Another opposition group, the Coalition for a Better Indiana, held informational meetings on the referendum ahead of the vote.

Why the results matter

Taken together, voters in two Midwestern states declined to expand gambling when the question was put to them directly. In Nebraska, that happened despite what Spellerberg described as a 20 to 1 spending gap in favor of the yes campaign.

For Nebraska, the outcome keeps the current model in place: in-person betting at racetrack casinos, taxed at 20%, with most of the tax money steered to property tax relief. Supporters who argued that wagering dollars are leaving for Iowa now face a Legislature that has repeatedly declined to authorize online betting.

What happens next

The Nebraska results remain unofficial until they are certified, and the counts could shift as the remaining precincts report. The margin stayed consistent between the midnight and early morning updates in the reports we reviewed. Points to watch from here:

  • Final certified totals for Initiatives 440 and 441.
  • Whether online betting supporters take the issue back to the Nebraska Legislature.
  • Whether Indiana lawmakers revisit House Bill 1038, since every county named in the law voted no and none can hold a repeat referendum.

For now, Nebraskans can still bet on sports only in person at the state’s racetrack casinos, and no northeast Indiana county can receive the casino license the Legislature created this year.

21+ (18+ in some states). Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Sources

Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a senior copywriter and content strategist who has written for regulated gambling operators for close to a decade. He was a copywriter at The Rank Group in Gibraltar (2017-2019), a senior copywriter in the Ladbrokes Coral creative studio at Entain (2019-2021) and senior creative copywriter at Eyas Gaming (2021-2024), where he led messaging for gaming brands in regulated international markets and worked closely with compliance teams. Before that he wrote about videogames and esports for PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Red Bull Esports and Kotaku UK. At Casinojournal he covers US gambling regulation, prediction markets, sports betting and sweepstakes casinos.

LinkedIn

More news