A historic defeat for the U.S. online sports betting industry in Nebraska underscores a broader backlash against online gambling in the United States. Americans lost $27 billion to state-sanctioned online gambling in 2025.
State voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed amendment to the Nebraska constitution to allow online sports wagering. Nebraska already authorized sports betting at brick-and-mortar casinos.
Although a relatively small state in terms of population, Nebraska’s result illustrates a remarkable shift on state-sanctioned online sports betting.
A Major Rebuke
Despite $23 million to $0 in support of legalizing it (according to Plains Ledger data), voters resoundingly rejected the measure to bring legal sports betting online. According to other reports, opponents raised $1 million. Regardless, those in favor vastly outspent the opposition.
Roughly $20 million of that figure came from DraftKings and FanDuel, the two online sports gambling giants.
Late Tuesday, with only 41% of votes counted, the tally for legalizing online sports betting was down roughly 7 points, according to tracking from the Associated Press and New York Times. The ballot question appeared headed for defeat.
On Wednesday morning, with approximately 91% of ballots counted, the measure had been defeated, with 54.5% (395,330 votes) against and 45.5% for legalization (330,231).
Why It’s Historic
Nebraska is just the second state after California in 2022 to reject legalizing online sports betting at the ballot box.
Legal online sports gambling isn’t as controversial as AI data centers, for example, but it’s quite unpopular. Unlike data centers, the harm from online sports gambling can, in many ways, remain more hidden from view.
An Overton Insights poll from May found American voters opposed legalization 47% to 31%. Prediction markets, which offer sports betting outside state regulation, are even more controversial, according to other polling.
Eight years after the Supreme Court overturned the federal prohibition, U.S. online sports betting has run amok, according to numerous public health experts and policymakers I’ve interviewed.
As a result, public health reform related to online gambling is gaining momentum, with Nebraska’s result underscoring that seismic shift.
Between The Lines
Younger voters appeared to slam the idea of online sports betting in Nebraska more so than other residents, potentially reinforcing recent Pew polling on younger Americans’ views on the issue.
The measure to legalize sports betting did far worse in Lancaster County, home to the University of Nebraska, than statewide (58% in Lancaster vs. 54.5% statewide).
Former Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne has been a longtime opponent of sports betting.
As of writing, the only counties to vote for online sports betting legalization in Nebraska were along the border with Iowa, a state that has legal online sports betting.
More residents in those counties likely travel across the border to Iowa to gamble online than people living near the center of the state. Still, counties near the Colorado and Kansas borders, for example, both of which also legalized online sports gambling, did not vote in favor of legalization.
According to NYT/AP data, income level and whether a voter has a college education didn’t appear to significantly affect their position on whether online sports betting should be legal.
Bottom Line
With a monumental voter rejection of U.S. legalized online sports betting on the books (no pun intended), now is the time for states to consider putting online sports betting repeal on the ballot, where applicable. Online sports betting is legal in 31 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
With nearly countless studies and polls showing the harm, it would be politically healthy for states to let voters decide whether to continue with a legal market.
Ohio, Vermont, and Maryland have seen bills to repeal online betting laws, but none have passed. Just late last month, a bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers introduced a bill that could protect consumers, though repeal should be on the table as well.
The Supreme Court and/or Congress must address the prediction-market sports-betting problem, which has been unfolding since last year.
There is a lot in the pipeline for U.S. efforts to combat what former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams recently described as the “new opioid crisis.”
