The long line of headlights heading toward a cornfield in Iowa each night is not paying homage to the final scene of the Kevin Costner baseball movie Field of Dreams, but rather Nebraskans driving across the state line to place bets.
GeoComply, a company that specializes in geolocation security and fraud prevention, discovered its data showed unusually high betting activity in a remote cornfield that couldn’t be explained by a farmer’s daughter taking a boyfriend there for a tryst and a teaser bet.
Evaluating Nebraska Demand
The digital data being gathered by GeoComply was at the behest of Nebraska lawmakers looking into the demand for sports betting in the state, and GeoComply senior advisor John Pappas described to SiGMA News the scene by the cornfield.
“There are literally lines of cars parked up next to the field,” he said. “People pull into the shoulder, stop their cars, put on their hazards, place their bets, and then promptly turn around and drive back to Nebraska.”
In Iowa, betting on sports online has been legal since 2019. But next door in Nebraska, there are just a few retail sportsbooks in operation as the Cornhusker state is one of 12 that haven’t gotten with the program.
(As DraftKings explains on the help page of its site, the current situation is that “You can log into and deposit funds to your account even if you are physically located in a non-permitted jurisdiction. You can also view placed bets and promotions in a non-permitted jurisdiction. You cannot place bets while physically located in a jurisdiction that does not allow sports betting.”)
Trust Concerns With Offshore Books
There was value in the data being gathered, decided Betting Hero, which describes itself as a wagering “concierge service,” and which sent people into the field (literally) to find out in person just what was going on.
For example, why weren’t these people just betting from the comfort of home via unregulated apps, and what were their thoughts on the gambling stance taken by Nebraska?
Bettors told the researchers it was worth the drive because “the legal books are much better than the unregulated ones...because of…the combinations, the Same Game Parlays. You can’t do that offshore….” adding that there were trust concerns with unregulated sites.
They also mentioned the convenience (and remember, this is a guy sitting in his truck by a field) of not having to go to a physical sportsbook “where you wait in line…you have to go there to cash your rewards as well, but the ability to drive over here, park, browse at your own leisure, place your bets and then leave, it’s much more convenient.”
Also gathering information that those lobbying the state to regulate gaming are looking for, Betting Hero asked the group if Nebraska should make sports betting legal.
“Absolutely,” said one person. “I mean, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it’s a huge revenue stream for the state…So, if you’re looking for a new revenue stream, there’s one staring you in the face.”
The Senior Director of Product and Research for Betting Hero, Ernie Ropas, said the data collected by GeoComply shows other ways bettors get around America’s checkerboard of regulated and unregulated states.
He claims, for example, that there are truck drivers who route themselves through particular legal states so they can place bets on their trip, and that others traveling for work book connecting flights through legal states in order to access regulated sportsbooks.
Foregoing Revenue
John Pappas, the GeoComply advisor, said unregulated states should wake up to the revenue they’re foregoing.
“As it stands now, each state has different rules,” he said. “Some don’t permit betting on college sports, some do. Some put a deposit limit on the use of credit cards, some don’t. So, if your desire is to have people within your state operating under your rules, then you need to create the rules. Otherwise, whether you want to believe it or not, people are going to travel to another state, and this is revenue that you’re losing out on.”
Massachusetts, a fairly recent adopter of regulated gaming, is an example of a quick and dramatic shift in betting.
“When online betting became legal in Massachusetts, customers moved from offshore to onshore almost overnight,” explained Betting Hero’s Ropas. “It’s very quick; 57 percent of sportsbook users switched to a legal book straight away, with 73 percent having made the move after only a month.”
