Nevada Lottery Bill Fails After Assembly Speaker Yeager Shelves Legislation

Posted on: April 14, 2025, 08:57h. 

Last updated on: April 14, 2025, 02:34h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.
  • Nevada doesn’t have a lottery
  • Lottery legislation will remain on hold for at least another year
  • Casinos oppose allowing a lottery to come to Nevada

A Nevada lottery bill to possibly end the state’s prohibition of lottery games has been put on hold.

Nevada lottery bill gaming casino
Cash and Mega Millions tickets purchased through the Connecticut Lottery are seen. Nevada remains free of lottery gaming despite being the richest gambling state in the US. (Image: Shutterstock)

Assembly Joint Resolution 5 (AJR5) sought to revise provisions relating to lotteries and the sale of lottery tickets in Nevada. The resolution is a carryover of a 2023 bill that the Nevada Legislature endorsed.

Last Friday, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) ensured there would be no change to Nevada’s law to allow lottery gaming. Nevada’s lottery prohibition has run for nearly 160 years.

With so much economic uncertainty and shocking federal funding cuts, this measure will not move forward,” Yeager declared.

Yeager’s action came on the April 11 committee deadline day, a day many bills facing long odds of passing are formally voted down or shelved.

Lottery Prohibition

Nevada is the nation’s richest gaming state, with players’ losses last year amounting to a record $15.6 billion. 2024 marked Nevada’s fourth consecutive year of annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) growth.

Recent polls suggest that a strong majority of the public (76%) in Nevada support the authorization of a state-run lottery.

In 2023, the Legislature moved closer to allowing voters to decide if the Nevada Constitution should be amended to allow for a lottery. The bicameral voted in favor of AJR5 that year, but for a statewide ballot referendum to be initiated, the measure must receive a second favorable vote.

If the Legislature had voted to move AJR5 before voters, the referendum would have been placed on the 2026 election ballot.

With Yeager setting AJR5 aside, Nevada will remain one of only five states without a lottery. That will keep many Nevadans driving to the California side of Primm and other border states to purchase their lottery slips and tickets for Mega Millions and Powerball.

The other nonlottery states are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah.

Economic Concerns

Nevada’s powerful casino industry is opposed to bringing lottery gaming to the state. They argue that lottery sales would cut into their business and put jobs at risk.

Proponents say that thinking is long outdated and that lottery gaming would provide new tax revenue and jobs for the state. The Culinary Union Local 226, which represents roughly 60K workers in the gaming and hospitality industries in Las Vegas and Reno, has been supportive of AJR5.

“It’s irresponsible that Democratic leadership in the Nevada Legislature refused to even give AJR5 a hearing — killing legislation they supported last session and denying Nevadans the opportunity to have their voices heard,” said Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge. “When politicians talk about democracy being at risk but block Nevadans from voting on something as straightforward as a state lottery, their words ring hollow. Actions speak louder than rhetoric.”

Yeager reasoned that with federal funding cuts and President Donald Trump’s tariffs threats, the latter posing serious risks to inflation and products and service costs, now isn’t the time to induce a lottery. The speaker also doesn’t believe a lottery would provide much of a funding benefit for the state because of high regulatory and implementation costs.   

Iowa, a state with a similar population, generated a record $108.4 million in its 2023 fiscal year. The Iowa Lottery uses its proceeds in a variety of ways, including financial assistance for veterans, economic development programs, increased law enforcement funding, K-12 public education, and agriculture initiatives.