Although it is not earning in as much revenue as in the past few years, there are still business establishments that are prepared to gamble on the game of keno. Revenue in Omaha alone is down by fourteen to fifteen percent. Keno owners and Omaha officials hope to make up for those losses by opening new keno locations.
Four brand new keno establishments will soon open in Omaha. A part of that proceeds goes to the city since it needs all the money it can get at the moment. Keno earned more than $51 million last year, but that result is down from a year ago.
Omaha gets a portion of the keno money and a lot of things are funded with those keno dollars. Omaha Finance Director Pam Spaccarotella said on February 2nd, 2010 that the money from keno provides funding for the non-profit groups that the city supports, homeless shelters, women's shelters and others.
Keno revenues also pay for police cars, fire rescue squads and the Nebraska Humane Society. Over the past sixteen years, the Humane Society had received more than $5 million keno to cover Omaha's animal control.
Nebraska Humane Society's Pam Wiese said that they have a thirty-person unit that responds to more than 30,000 calls a year ranging from animal bites, animal pickup and others in their animal control division. The Pizza Gourmet Company is a growing local establishment, one of four new businesses that plan to offer keno.
Joe Raya of Pizza Gourmet said that it will help them attract new customers. Raya said that he hopes that the game of keno will also help small business establishments and taxpayers. City officials hope that keno revenue will improve as keno locations increase and that might help bring the taxes down.
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John Sullivan
