Nebraska Online Sports Betting Petitions Could Reach November Ballot Despite Fraud Concerns

Tax Relief Nebraska says it has more than enough valid signatures to place two petitions legalizing online sports betting on the state’s Nov. 3 ballot, even as Lancaster County’s top election official has flagged some of the submitted signatures as potentially fraudulent. Jordan McGrain, one of the petition’s sponsors, said this week he remains confident both measures will clear the threshold needed to go before voters this fall.

The scrutiny arrives at a sensitive moment for Nebraska’s petition process statewide. Lancaster County officials recently uncovered what may be the largest case of alleged fraudulent ballot petition activity in state history, tied to a separate set of Lincoln city charter petitions submitted by the Good Government Lincoln Project. More than 65% of the roughly 30,100 signatures on those Lincoln petitions were rejected, with about 70% of those rejections flagged as suspected fraud. The case led to five out-of-state arrests coordinated with the U.S. Marshals Service and prompted both Gov. Jim Pillen and Secretary of State Bob Evnen to call for reforms to how petition circulators are paid and verified. With election officials across the state now applying heightened scrutiny to every incoming submission, Tax Relief Nebraska’s sports betting petitions have effectively been swept into that same spotlight, even though investigators have said the Lincoln fraud case has no connection to any other political campaign, including the betting petitions.

A 350,000-Signature Push Built on Out-of-State Money

Tax Relief Nebraska submitted more than 201,000 signatures in late June for a constitutional amendment that would legalize online sports betting statewide, along with roughly 146,000 signatures for a companion statutory measure establishing a tax framework for the new revenue. Combined, the campaign turned in nearly 350,000 signatures across both petitions — well above the roughly 126,000 required for the constitutional amendment and 88,000 required for the statutory measure. The constitutional amendment carries an added geographic hurdle: valid signatures from at least 10% of registered voters in at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

The campaign’s financial backing has drawn scrutiny of its own. DraftKings and FanDuel have each contributed roughly $3.5 million to Tax Relief Nebraska, more than $7 million combined, underwriting a signature-gathering effort that relied heavily on paid, out-of-state circulators — the same payment structure that Nebraska officials have now flagged as a root cause of the fraud problems uncovered in the Lincoln case. Critics including the Nebraska Family Alliance have called the sports betting push “a sham,” arguing it oversells the property tax benefits to voters while primarily serving as a vehicle for national operators to enter a new state market. The group has pointed to the campaign’s own revenue estimates, which project under a quarter of a percentage point in actual property tax relief, as evidence the “tax relief” branding overstates the measure’s impact.

How the Money Would Be Used

Under the statutory petition, 70% of tax revenue collected from legal online sports betting would flow into Nebraska’s property tax relief fund, mirroring the allocation already applied to taxes generated by in-person wagering at the state’s licensed casinos. Supporters argue that extending the same framework to mobile and online betting would meaningfully grow that revenue stream without raising taxes elsewhere, generating close to $87 million in new state tax revenue over five years by the campaign’s own projections. Opponents dispute both the size of that number and how much of it would ultimately reach individual property owners.

What Happens Next

Nebraska’s 93 counties must now hand-verify every signature submitted for both petitions, a process the Secretary of State’s office expects to wrap up by mid-September, when the general election ballot is formally certified. If both measures clear that bar, Nebraska voters will decide in November whether to legalize online sports betting statewide and simultaneously lock in a regulatory tax framework — a combination that would open the door for major operators to launch mobile platforms in a market currently limited to in-person wagering at Nebraska’s racetrack casinos.

For now, McGrain and the Tax Relief Nebraska campaign maintain their signature totals carry enough of a cushion to withstand additional rejections during verification. But with county election offices statewide now on high alert following the Lincoln fraud case, the review of these petitions is likely to draw more attention than it might have otherwise. Nebraska would join a growing list of states weighing mobile sports betting expansion this election cycle, and bettors tracking the next market to open can find real-time lines once new operators launch through resources like live sports betting odds tracking or state-specific breakdowns on the state-by-state guide.