For years, opponents of casino gambling in Nebraska who hoped to prevent its legalization in the state pointed to the destruction the pastime would inevitably cause across communities in the footprint of casinos.

Some of the state’s most famous residents — including then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, Omaha billionaire Warren Buffet and former Husker football coach and Congressman Tom Osborne — joined faith leaders and anti-gambling advocates in a vocal caucus that tried and failed to stop Nebraskans from legalizing casino gambling.

Among their arguments was the repeated suggestion that casino gambling would, among other things, bring an increase in crime.

“We have seen the devastation that comes with gambling: addiction, crime, divorce, embezzlements and even suicides,” Pat Loontjer, the executive director of Gambling with the Good Life, said in February 2020 — nine months before voters overwhelmingly approved three constitutional amendments to authorize casino gambling in the state.

But a year after Nebraska’s first state-licensed casino opened in Lincoln, such fears — particularly over the purported increase in crime that opponents warned would accompany casino gambling’s arrival here — have not come to pass.

“Every month, I get a printout of calls for service that we have down there,” Lincoln Police Capt. Don Scheinost, said of WarHorse Lincoln, which sits near U.S. 77 and West Denton Road in southwest Lincoln.

“And I’m amazed every month because it’s not what I expected. It’s lower than what I envisioned.”

In the year since WarHorse’s hundreds of slot machines opened to the public, the Lincoln Police Department has been called to the casino 78 times — most often for reports of disturbances or trespassing that have infrequently resulted in citations, according to police data.

“I expected more than 78 in a year, I guess,” said Scheinost, who leads LPD’s Southwest Team and has been a member of the department since 1989.

On average, police are called to the casino once every four or five days — a fact that Scheinost credited to the casino’s staff and management, who he said have been nothing but cooperative with police and are “clearly … doing a very good job” managing their patrons.

From October 2022 through August of this year — the last month for which data is available — police across the city issued 15,463 felony and misdemeanor citations, an uptick of roughly 1,000 from the same time period across 2021 and 2022, according to police data.

But there’s no evidence to suggest that the casino played any role in that uptick, and in fact, the data suggests its opening has prompted fewer calls to police than a hospital or grocery store might.

In the same year that police have responded 78 times to WarHorse Lincoln, officers have been called to Bryan West Campus — also under Scheinost’s purview in the city’s southwest sector — 1,425 times, according to police data.

Police have responded to the Walmart at 8700 Andermatt Drive, near Lincoln’s southeastern edge, 326 times in the same time frame.

The U-Stop near Lincoln’s airport has prompted 34 calls for service in the last year. And the Sapp Bros. truck stop in northeast Lincoln has been the subject of 27 calls since October 2022. Both, like the casino, are open 24 hours a day.

“I don’t think the casino is causing us any undue heartache,” Scheinost said, noting that crimes like stolen cars and vehicle break-ins —  often preventable, particularly if residents take precautions — “are the crimes that are really hurting us.”

And despite the warnings from opponents that have long hung over gambling in Nebraska, Scheinost said fears of what casino gambling might bring to southwest Lincoln don’t seem to be top of mind for residents.

“I don’t believe I’ve been asked at all by any community organizations about the casino or any calls out there,” he said. “If I have, it’s just been kind of in a passing — ‘How are things going?’

“It’s low calls for service. They have good staff. They handle their business. And it’s really a non-issue for the Police Department.”

WarHorse Lincoln has been the subject of a series of fraudulent cash advances in a scheme that played out in the casino’s initial months of operation, when at least two Lincoln residents allegedly used fraudulent IDs to get cash advances at the casino, according to court filings.

In court records filed last year, police said the casino had suffered $12,000 in financial losses by mid-December in incidents under similar circumstances.

Still, Scheinost said police haven’t encountered anything they didn’t expect at WarHorse. But, he acknowledged, crime could expand as the casino does, too.

Officials with the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission — who, like Scheinost, say they have encountered few criminal issues in the state’s casinos — also recognize that the addition of hotels could change things.

That is, in part, why commissioners voted to create a committee on problem gambling and human trafficking on the same day last year they gave WarHorse Lincoln the green light to open its doors.

“We’re trying to take a very proactive approach here,” said Casey Ricketts, the commission’s director of compliance who has quarterbacked the body’s monthly round table on problem gambling and human trafficking.

“We recognize that there can be issues that arise when casinos come,” she said. “We’re not blind to that. And so we want to do what we can do to help prevent anything.”

Ricketts said the commission has required casinos to train staff to help prevent potential trafficking and has asked the casinos to post human trafficking awareness posters in bathrooms.

They’ve also asked casinos to post the phone number for Nebraska’s human trafficking hotline in bathrooms as well.

With its monthly round tables, the commission has brought together the state’s casinos, problem gaming advocates and experts, and state, local and federal law enforcement entities in effort to get out ahead of potential trafficking — a problem that, so far, has not reared its head in Nebraska.

Before it does, the commission hopes to bring more providers, trafficking experts and law enforcement agencies who aren’t on the round table — particularly those who hail from places other than Lincoln — to join the conversation.

“These issues are happening everywhere in this country, unfortunately,” said Tom Sage, the director of the state’s Racing and Gaming Commission. “Truck stops — all that kind of stuff. So it’s not just casinos. But I believe our casinos and our commission and local law enforcement is taking it serious and knowing it could be a problem at some point, hoping it’s not.

“But, really, we want to be on top of it. And if we have one victim we can save, we all will be very happy.”