Change provisions relating to the advertisement, operation, use, and taxation of cash devices, the distribution of tax proceeds, and violations under the Mechanical Amusement Device Tax Act and create the Nebraska Child Care Aid Fund

Brief

What this bill does

If it passes, what actually changes?

This is a state gambling-regulation bill about cash-paying skill machines in bars, stores, and clubs. It tightens who may play, how many machines a place may hold, and how they may be advertised.

• Sets a $500 application fee and a $250 annual decal fee per cash device.
• Penalizes unlicensed or chance-based cash devices up to $1,000 for each day of operation.
• Caps machines at four per store; over 4,000 square feet, one per 1,000, maximum fifteen.
• Requires an on-premises attendant actively supervising play beginning August 1, 2026.
• Requires electronic government-ID scanning before each play session beginning January 1, 2028.
• Limits exterior signs to three, each no larger than eleven inches by ten inches.

What it says it is for

Does it do what it claims?

The title is broader than the text supplied here. The advertising, operation, use, and violation promises are delivered; the tax and child-care promises are not in the text provided.

• Title promises amendments to sections 77-3003.01, 77-3003.02, 77-3006, 77-3009, and 77-3012.
• The text supplied stops inside section 77-3006; sections 77-3009 and 77-3012 never appear.
• No section creating the Nebraska Child Care Aid Fund appears in the text provided.
• No tax rate or distribution formula for cash device net operating revenue appears here.
• Advertisement, operation, use, and violation changes claimed by the title are present in sections 1 and 2.
• The title's "records" claim matches a fifteen-business-day duty to surrender source code and device communications.

Where Scripture bears on it

What does the Bible say about this?

Two of the candidate verses bear on the bargain this bill implies. Amos asks, "That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?" (Amos 8:6) — the old question of who is actually paying when a public good is financed out of what is taken from whoever stands in front of the machine, which is precisely the trade a bill named for both a device tax and a child care fund proposes. And Paul's "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me" (Romans 7:21) names the shape of a statute that intends to protect minors and fund care for children while leaving the devices themselves licensed, taxed and in operation. What neither verse settles is any of the concrete questions the bill turns on: whether four devices or fifteen is the right cap, whether sixty percent is the right outside-revenue threshold, whether an attendant and a card scanner will in fact keep a nineteen-year-old off a machine, whether these games are skill or chance, or whether a state that permits them at all is right to take a share. Scripture frames the question of who bears the cost; it does not audit the arithmetic, and a reader who wants the numbers judged must judge them elsewhere.

The case each way

What is the strongest argument for, and against?

The disagreement is over whether these machines are a bar amenity or slot machines under another name.

• For: Staffed supervision plus ID scanning makes it far harder for under-21 players to play.
• For: Banning cartoon characters and brand mimicry targets marketing that appeals to minors.
• For: Device caps and the 60 percent outside-revenue test stop stores becoming unlicensed casinos.
• Against: ID-scanning hardware by 2028 and a paid attendant fall hardest on small retailers.
• Against: Fraternal societies and veterans organizations are exempt from the caps, treating competitors unequally.
• Against: Eleven-by-ten-inch sign limits restrict truthful commercial speech about a legally sold product.

What is unsettled

What should I be careful about?

This reading covers only the text supplied, which breaks off mid-sentence partway through Section 3. Anything past that point is unknown.

• The tax rate change and proceeds distribution are unreadable; the text ends inside section 77-3006.
• Nothing here states how much money the Nebraska Child Care Aid Fund would receive.
• "Gross operating revenue" has no stated measurement period, leaving the 60 percent test ambiguous.
• The department, not the bill, sets technical standards for the 2028 age-verification mechanism.
• New versus existing language is mostly unmarked here; only the ten-to-thirty-day cure change is visible.
• Section 77-3003.02(7) bars rules restricting advertising, sitting awkwardly beside the new statutory sign limits.

Text (1)

• Introduced (application/pdf)

Each link opens the Legislature's own document. The text itself is not in our database yet (fetched lazily); when it lands these pages will carry it verbatim.

All Actions (9)

Votes (0)

There have been no roll call votes on this bill.

Sponsors (1)

• Sen. Ashlei Spivey [District 13] — primary sponsor

Amendments (0)

There are no amendments to this bill.

Fiscal Notes & Statements (2)

• Fiscal Note — Fiscal Note
• Statement of Intent — Statement of Intent

The Legislature's own companion documents; each link opens the official copy.

Committees (1)

Related Bills (0)

No related bill information was received for LB920.