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WarHorse Lincoln opens to the public on Sept. 24, 2022.
WarHorse Lincoln won’t have its sports book up and running in time for next week’s College World Series.
However, the casino has hired a sports book manager.
Jason Johnston, who had been the sports book manager at BetMGM, will head up WarHorse’s sports betting operation.
“He’s got a lot of experience and so he knows what people are interested in bet-wise,” said Lynne McNally, CEO of the Nebraska Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which is a partner in the Lincoln casino with Ho-Chunk Inc.
McNally said the casino had hoped to start offering sports betting this month, but the process is more involved than anticipated.
“It always is more complicated than you think it’s going to be,” she said.
Kambi Group signed an on-property sportsbook partnership with WarHorse last month, but “that’s not where it stops,” McNally said. There are still several steps before the process can be completed.
Kambi has to provide a secure location for the server before an accredited official can service it. After that, the software will have to be loaded into the server, but permission first must be granted by the Nebraska Racing & Gaming Commission, which requires proper notice.
“It’s all for security and integrity,” she said. “So I’m certainly not going to complain about it. You know, we want to have a secure game and have it be safe, so that people know when they place their bets that they’re secure, their information is not going to get out.
“That’s very, very important to us.”
McNally said at Friday’s Nebraska Racing & Gaming Commission meeting that she’s hopeful sports betting will begin before the end of June.
“Our wish and desire is we are up and running in the next two weeks,” she said.
In May, the commission approved a sports wagering catalog that lays out what sports bettors will be able to wager on.
It includes most of the major team sports — MLB, the NBA, the NFL — as well as a number of other pro and college sports.
Included are professional golf and tennis, professional bull riding and rodeo, and motorsports.
The list also includes a number of college sports, including football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, but also lacrosse, water polo, swimming and field hockey.
Sports betting was approved by voters along with casino gambling in the November 2020 election, but the commission focused on getting casinos up and running first.
Sports betting rules finally went into effect at the beginning of February after Gov. Jim Pillen signed off on them.
The rules as approved by the Legislature require bets to be made in person at a casino and also do not allow people to bet on Nebraska college teams when they are playing in games in the state.
That prohibition will apply not only to the state’s three Division 1 universities — Nebraska, Creighton and Omaha — but also to smaller colleges as well. Betting will be allowed on college basketball down to the Division 3 level and on college football down to the Division 2 level.
How are states using tax income from legal sports betting?
How are states using tax income from legal sports betting?
Sports betting is legal and operational in 33 states as well as Washington, D.C. with three more to launch in 2023. How big is this enterprise? According to the American Gaming Association (AGA), commercial gaming revenue topped $60 billion during 2022, a 13.9% increase year-over-year. How are states using the tax revenues?
In most states, the majority of revenue heads to a “General Fund.” Virginia, for instance, allocates 2.5% of its sports betting revenue to programs to combat problem gambling, and the remaining 97.5% to its General Fund. Each state is free to allocate the revenue any way they see fit, which means that some states have gotten creative in the programs and initiatives they’ve funded with gambling revenue.
OLBG has researched five unique programs currently being funded with gambling revenue on the state level. Initiatives range from infrastructure and water preservation to education and mental health and substance abuse programs.
Colorado
The Rocky Mountain State is known for its natural beauty and Colorado voters were moved to protect it when they went to the polls in 2019. Voters approved sports betting in November of 2019 with a major selling point being that a portion of the tax revenue would be used to fund the Colorado Water Plan. State officials predicted that sports betting would provide an average of $14.9 million per year to the water plan for the first five years, with a cap of $27.2 million a year.
The Water Plan fund makes up the largest portion of the revenue from the 10% tax on sportsbooks’ net revenues. During the 2021-22 fiscal year, $12.4 million was received by the state, with $12.2 million of that approved for allocations. The Colorado Water Plan’s goal is to make the state more water resilient while boosting its resources by 2050.
Illinois
Sports betting in the state of Illinois has generated nearly $190 million in tax revenue from its launch March 2020 to October 2022. Gov. J.B. Pritzker estimated that gambling could bring in more than $100 million each year with a portion of those funds being allocated to its Capital Projects Fund, which seeks to improve roads, bridges, mass transit, schools, and universities.
Senate Bill 690, which legalized sports wagering, earmarked revenues for the Rebuild Illinois Capital plan. The bill estimated that sports betting could generate approximately $58 million to $102 million annually thanks to a 15% tax on sports wagering receipts and an additional 2% tax for wagers placed in Cook County.
Montana
In June of 2019, Big Sky Country gave sports gambling the green light when former Gov. Steve Bullock signed House Bill 725 into law. This Bill gave control of sports betting to the state lottery. The state utilizes the first $12.4 million in revenue to fund its General Fund, with the excess being directed to a STEM scholarship fund.
The Montana state legislature created the program in 2015, offering $1,000 scholarships to in-state high school graduates who major in science, technology, engineering, math or health care at a Montana college. In 2020, $500,000 was added to the scholarship fund according to the Montana Lottery’s Annual Report.
Tennessee
The Volunteer State has collected over $110 million in tax revenue since sports betting operators began taking wagers in November of 2020. Betting tax revenue from sports supports education in Tennessee by funding after-school programs and scholarships. Sports betting revenue is currently channeled into a lottery education fund that supports the HOPE and Tennessee Promise college scholarships.
The Tennessee Sports Wagering Act places stipulations on what the revenue could be used for in the state. The act states that 80% of the privilege tax revenue collected goes to the Lottery for Education Account, 15% goes to the general fund for infrastructure projects for local governments and 5% to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse for responsible gambling initiatives.
West Virginia
The Mountain State is looking out for its public employees. In 2018, the West Virginia state Senate passed an amendment that directed money from sports wagering to the Public Employees Insurance Agency’s stabilization fund (PEIA).
The amendment passed unanimously in 2018, but it’s clear that the tax revenue from sports betting hasn’t been enough to put PEIA on solid ground. Rising medical costs due to inflation and the increasing costs of prescription drugs, have pushed PEIA into a $92 million deficit in 2022.
This story was produced by OLBG and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7391 or [email protected]
On Twitter @psangimino
