Nebraska Latest State to Explore Online Poker Regulation

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January not only brings a new year but the potential for online poker expansion in the United States. Like most years since 2011, we are beginning to hear rumblings about states looking at regulating online poker. However, we didn’t expect Nebraska to be one of those states.

According to reports, Nebraska Senator Justin Wayne has filed a bill that will legalize online poker along with sports betting and daily fantasy sports. The bill would allow for favorable for online poker operators in the states, but one has to wonder if the bill has a realistic chance of passing.

Games of Skill Act Filed

Recent, State Senator Justin Wayne filed the Games of Skill Act, also known as LB990. The bill is a multi-faceted bill that would legalize poker, sports betting, and daily fantasy sports in Nebraska.

The bill in its present form does not include explicit language guaranteeing an online version of any of the games. However, reports claim that those close to Sen. Wayne have said that online poker is intended to be part of the bill.

If the bill passes, there is a chance that poker offerings in Nebraska will be limited. Under the bill, draw poker and community card poker games would be legal. This would make NL Hold’em, PL Omaha, 2-7 Lowball, and Badugi among the games legal. Stud based poker games may or may not be legal since they are not explicitly mentioned.

One thing to note about this bill is that there are no casinos in Nebraska presently offering live poker. There are a handful of tribal casinos, but otherwise, the state only offers legal bingo games. Should the bill become law, it will be interesting to see if anyone actually offers live poker.

As such, you can expect much of this bill to focus on online gambling with both tribal casinos and state-run entities operating online poker rooms and sportsbooks.

Favorable Terms for Operators

Looking over the bill, the terms look to be very favorable for online poker and sportsbooks operators. The bill presently lacks restrictions such as bad actor clauses, so sites like PokerStars should have few problems entering the market.

For those looking to enter the Nebraska iPoker or sports betting market, operators only have to pay a $10,000 application fee. Afterward, revenue will be taxed at just 6 percent with an annual cap of just $10,000.

These terms will make it easy for established operators like PokerStars and partypoker to enter the market. It will also give plenty of wiggle room for smaller operators such as Pala Poker who might take a flier on a state like Nebraska.

What’s the Upside for Nebraska Without Online Casino Gambling?

This is an interesting bill in that it includes online poker but does not include online casino gambling. In most states, it’s either sports betting or iGaming in general. Few states have taken the New York or California approach and just tried to legalize online poker with sports betting.

As such, one has to wonder if there is enough of an upside to keeping online poker as part of the bill. Since it will be a new game in the casino market, it may struggle to get off the ground. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada, all three states had live poker. For Delaware, they had online casino gambling as the backbone of the market.

Without online casino gambling, this bill could effectively become a sports betting measure. If there is any substantial pushback regarding online poker, lawmakers may drop it to get sports betting pushed through.

In its present form, we only give this bill about a 20 percent chance to pass. We predict this measure to either has online gambling added or online poker dropped. The Nebraska market just isn’t robust enough to support online poker, so don’t get your hopes up unless the measure shows signs of strong support in the legislature.