Demand Rising for Nebraska Online Sports Betting

Retail sports betting in Nebraska has been live for just about one year. And state residents are already, it seems, clamoring for more. To be more specific, there’s apparently a growing demand for Nebraska online sports betting.

This is not a revelation to some extent. Mobile wagering is a booming industry right now. The overwhelming majority of legal bets are now processed through online sportsbooks in the United States. Not only has it been this way for quite some time, but the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

On the contrary, the popularity of online sports betting throughout the United States is on the rise. It helps that it’s more accessible throughout the country. But mostly, the sports betting industry is hot property as it becomes more prevalent. And users deeply appreciate the convenience of being able to bet on sports from their phone.

It makes sense, then, that residents of The Cornhusker State would have interest in Nebraska online sports betting. It’s essentially the industry standard. And beyond that, only one retail sports betting location in Nebraska is currently up and running. The state has plans to roll out others, but the process is a gradual one.

Still, despite all the obvious reasons, interest in Nebraska online sports betting has now taken a more official form. This is to say, there is concrete data to back up conventional wisdom.

There Have Been MILLIONS of Attempts to Participate in Nebraska Online Sports Betting

As currently constructed, state gaming laws do not permit Nebraska online sports betting. But that hasn’t stopped Nebraskans from trying to participate in it anyway. Consider this recent report from Joe Dejka of Omaha.com:

“GeoComply, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, serves the sportsbook industry by ensuring companies and their customers are complying with gambling restrictions such as Nebraska’s law requiring that bets be placed in person at Nebraska racetrack casinos. The company produced a report on Nebraska, based on GeoComply’s geolocation transactions for its sportsbook customers in authorized states. Geolocation checks are recorded at various stages of a user engaging with a legal sportsbook, including registering an account, logging in, and placing a bet. Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 30, the company processed nearly 2.9 million geolocation checks from devices located in Nebraska accessing legal mobile sportsbooks in other states. The company’s technology blocked them from betting, GeoComply said.”

To be sure, this report is not saying 2.9 million people from Nebraska tried to access online sportsbooks in the USA. Multiple attempts can be attributed to one person. And in this situation, that has to be the case. Nebraska’s overall population checks in at under 2 million.

Regardless, the sheer number of blocked attempts speaks to a real interest in Nebraska online sports betting. What’s more, GeoComply has reportedly “identified 64,000 mobile sports betting user accounts in Nebraska” this year. Once more, this doesn’t mean 64,000 Nebraskans have sports betting accounts. One person can have multiples. But that’s still a pretty hefty number when you consider the lengths you must travel to have an online sports betting account in Nebraska. Namely, we’re talking about the use of VPN services.

What Has Led to This Uptick in Attempts from Nebraskans to Place Sports Bets Online?

Timing could have a lot to do with the data GeoComply is delivering. We just exited the most popular portion of the sports calendar in the United States.

For a few weeks, the NFL, college football, MLB, the NBA, the NHL and Major League Soccer were all active at once. That business breeds curiosity. There were no doubt plenty of Nebraskans who thought something along the lines of “Oh, let me just see if this will work.”

Beyond that, GeoComply identified in-market advertising from legal online sportsbooks in the USA as a driving factor. Advertisements for FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars and others still run in The Cornhusker State even though Nebraska online sports betting isn’t legal. In particular, gambling operators have flooded the market with ads during live sporting events.

That exposure contributes to curiosity and action. As GeoComply senior vice president of government and public affairs explained: “And so they say, ‘Oh, I want to play here in Nebraska,’ and they download the app, and then they realize, ‘Wait, I actually can’t make the bet,’ even though it’s legal in Wyoming and in Kansas and in Colorado or in Iowa.”

Will Nebraska Online Sports Betting be Legalized Anytime Soon?

This is a question that will almost assuredly be raised during the state’s next round of legislative meetings. Lawmakers cannot ignore what is an obvious interest in bringing online sports betting to Nebraska.

Whether they act on this demand is a separate matter.

Nebraska is still technically in the process of setting up their retail sports betting infrastructure. The odds of them adding online sports gambling to the equation while they’re waiting on other in-person betting operations to debut isn’t great.

Thus far, there also doesn’t appear to be any official interest in expanding the operations of Nebraska sports betting. Usually, you hear about matters such as this being advocated for at the highest state levels. That, or you read about pro sports teams pushing for change. Most of the time, we even get alerted that sports betting bills and amendments are sitting on the legislative agenda.

None of that chatter is emanating out of The Cornhusker State at the moment. And so, at least for the time being, it seems that Nebraska online sports betting remains a ways off.

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