WarHorse Casinos pushes plan to close Nebraska's $32M gap
For many years, Nebraskans have been driving across the Missouri River to legally wager online in Iowa, thus losing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax income. With no self-exclusion mechanisms, no age restrictions, and no money returned to the state, illicit offshore sites have quietly filled the gap. However, that calculation is set to change soon.
In an exclusive interview with SiGMA News, Lynne McNally, Head of Government Affairs of WarHorse Casinos, outlined her campaign to legalise online sports betting in Nebraska. After repeated legislative setbacks in 2024 and 2025, including filibusters that stalled bills, McNally and her coalition resorted to a ballot initiative.
Blueprint for 2026 ballot approval
In order to qualify, the campaign must gather the signatures of 10 percent of Nebraska’s registered voters, or about 125,000 people, and demonstrate at least 5 percent support in 38 of the state’s 93 counties. Geographic distribution is just as significant as sheer volume because of this dual threshold.
McNally, who has run signature campaigns of this scale before, said the county targets will mirror the required percentages, with resources deployed proportionally across the state. She affirmed, “I have worked on a campaign very similar to this in the past that needed far more signatures. So, I’m confident that we can roll out a strategy and get that done.”
WarHorse’s existing partnerships with FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM signal that the country’s largest operators have a genuine stake in Nebraska becoming legal. McNally was measured on specifics, but the message was clear: this is no longer solely a horsemen’s fight, it is a fully coordinated industry push.
$32 million baseline, Iowa as benchmark
State Sen. Eliot Bostar’s widely cited estimate places Nebraska’s missed annual tax revenue from online sports betting at $32 million. However, McNally suggested the actual figure, post-legalisation, could be significantly higher, and she is benchmarking it against the state’s closest comparable market: Iowa.
Iowa launched online sports betting in August 2019 and has since become a thriving market, with much of its customer base historically consisting of Nebraskans crossing the border. McNally is using Iowa’s per capita figures and adjusting for Nebraska’s smaller population, a conservative approach that she believes still indicates substantial returns for the state’s property tax relief fund.
McNally emphasised, “Seventy percent of the tax money goes to the property tax relief fund in our state. And that’s where this money will go as well.”
Polling and key demographics
Initiative 429 — the 2020 referendum that legalised in-person casino gaming — passed with 65 percent of the vote. McNally explained the sentiment for this next step is similarly broad, with only one demographic consistently polling against: white Republican women over 50. Rather than viewing that as a liability, she framed it as a sign of how wide the coalition is.
McNally stated, “We have widespread appeal across all demographics. I think that we have overwhelming support in all demographics, except for one.”
Safeguards and consumer protection
McNally’s strongest case concerns what is already occurring rather than tax income. Despite Nebraska’s retail-only legal structure, she cited an anticipated 45 percent increase in mobile gaming accounts between 2023 and 2024. Residents are placing bets online, but they are doing so illegally and without any consumer safeguards. She contended that legalisation ultimately resolves an existing issue rather than creating a new one.
McNally noted, “We have partnered with large, worldwide known companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM — they all have the safeguards in place to make sure that underage people don’t bet. If you are a self-excluded person, they send those lists over to our commission. So, we have all kinds of safeguards for that. If you allow this to be legal, if you allow the illegal market to proliferate, those problems are just going to be exponentially increased.”
Address problem gambling
Problem gambling advocates have warned that Nebraska’s treatment budget will not scale with the demands of a full online betting market. For decades before Nebraska legalised casinos, it was Iowa that captured the gambling spend, and none of the resulting treatment costs returned to Nebraska.
McNally remarked, “Now they have resources. We’ve been sending millions over there for treatment. So, I would only expect that they would use these additional revenues for that kind of thing.”
What’s next
With circulators now visiting casinos, local events, and high-traffic areas across the state, the campaign has roughly four months to meet its dual signature threshold before the 3 July 2026 deadline. If they succeed, Nebraska voters will face a historic choice in November, finally bring the state’s betting market into the regulated, taxed, and safeguarded mainstream or continue sending their money, and their data, to platforms that offer none of those protections. Given the coalition McNally has assembled and the grassroots infrastructure already under way, the smart money may well be on the ballot.
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