Voters may get to decide to legalize Nebraska casinos in an election next year. Supporters of legalized gambling have launched a petition drive to place the issue on the 2020 ballot with financial backing from the economic development corporation owned by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Neighboring Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and South Dakota all allow commercial casinos.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars go across the border every year,” said Lance Morgan, the CEO of Ho-Chunk Inc., the corporation pushing the measure on the tribe’s behalf. “For a Nebraskan to do gaming, you have to go half a mile. It’s the height of paternalism to try to try to restrict it.”

Morgan said he’s confident, based on the group’s internal polling, that voters will approve the measure if it appears on the ballot. The measure is certain to face opposition from leading conservatives, including Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts and former University of Nebraska football coach and athletic director Tom Osborne.

“Casinos are bad for families and bad for business,” said Nate Grasz, policy director for the Nebraska Family Alliance, a conservative policy group that plans to fight the measure. “All men and women deserve an opportunity to build the best lives for themselves, and state-sanctioned gambling robs them of that opportunity.”

Gambling opponents successfully defeated ballot measures in 2004 and 2006, despite being outspent by wealthy casino interests. In 2014, they challenged a gambling measure in court and persuaded the Nebraska Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional, striking it from the ballot. This story about Nebraska casinos originally appeared on The Day website.