FREMONT, Neb (KMTV) — In the last year Nebraska's racing and gaming industry has taken off.
New casino's opened their doors, sports fans were able to start placing bets on games and several communities have started exploring the benefits of opening their own track and casino.
But in December a report, ordered by Nebraska's Racing and Gaming Commission, created some doubts on whether the state could handle more racetracks…
"I think a lot of these studies are being done are being done with a very minute amount of information," said Paul Bauer, a kwElite realtor and consultant for KRG Investment Group, the group behind a proposed horse track and casino in Fremont.
That study, authored by The Innovation Group, determined that Nebraska already had sufficient capacity at existing horse tracks and did not need to build anymore to keep up with demand.
But the Racing and Gaming Commission has taken issue with the lack of hard data in the report, particularly around casino gaming, and doubt the author's conclusions.
Now the commission is considering whether to amend the report with new information or throw it out entirely a good sign for folks who want more casinos.
"Obviously we always know its a great title, its a great catch me type thing and people want to investigate. But you look into the fine details of this there is very little information they are working on," said Bauer.
Sending the report back to the drawing board wasn't the only good news for Casino fans.
The numbers are in after the state's first full year of casino operations and with only four race track casinos the racing and gaming industry in the state brought in just over $89 million in revenue…and December broke the record for revenue in a month at $8.9 million.
Bauer said he was encouraged by the numbers, and believes if history is any indicator, revenues will continue to grow.
"There are no better studies than other states, especially ones that are close by. Iowa has 19 casinos and when you look at when they started and kept increasing their capacity of casinos there was never a downfall, it's only increasing," said Bauer.
