News writer, Interviewer
Brian Rockey has watched the Nebraska Lottery grow from a single scratch game into a multi-product operation generating millions for the state's environment, education, and communities. He was there at the start in 1993, and now, as the Director of the Nebraska Lottery, Brian Rockey has plans.
The newly appointed president of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL), Rockey, sat down to talk about what's changed, what's coming, and why the lottery industry isn't getting the credit it deserves.
From green bar paper to real-time dashboards
The Nebraska Lottery launched in September 1993 with one product: scratch games. Powerball followed in July 1994. Nine days after that first draw, the state had its first jackpot winner: $50 million. Four months later, almost to the day, another $50 million winner.
"It was crazy," Rockey confirms.
The products have diversified. But the bigger shift, in his view, is how the lottery now runs the business. He explained:
When I started, the first consideration was the splash it would make, the publicity it would generate, which is important. But our job is to raise money for our beneficiaries. Sometimes we didn't think about the mechanics like we probably could have.
That changed over the last decade, and technology is a big part of it.
For the marketing folks, for me and my cohort back in the day, we didn't use spreadsheets. Our accounting friends used spreadsheets, and we relied on them to guide us.
Today, everyone does. Dashboards replaced green bar printouts, and the different operational units, marketing, legal, and accounting, work in lockstep. Rocky tells us:
We're a lot more consultative with our other operational units. We plan things together, and execute things together, and monitor things together, and analyze things together. It has improved our performance and our ability to plan and be responsive.
A lottery built on landmarks
Rockey's tenure holds more than business milestones, and there is one memory that sticks out to him and predates his work in the Nebraska Lottery entirely.
In the early 1990s, he worked as public affairs director for Nebraska's governor, Ben Nelson, who proposed the lottery. They organized a statewide tour to build support, stopping at environmental and educational sites across the state. One stop was Chimney Rock, the iconic geological landmark on the old Oregon and Mormon Trail in Nebraska's panhandle. School buses full of kids. The governor spoke to them about state history. Rockey recalls:
The backdrop was the beautiful row of the bluffs, and Chimney Rock, and the prairie, and the governor, and the kids, and everything.
Thirty-five years later, Chimney Rock has a trail network built on 360 acres of preserved virgin prairie land purchased with a grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust, funded by lottery proceeds. There's a museum and visitor center, too.
"It was neat," he continued. "It kind of helped preserve that piece of our history."
That's the lottery's value proposition made tangible.
What's on the table for 2026
Rockey identifies three priorities for the year: product optimization, retail strategy, and beneficiary support.
On the product side, two launches stand out.
Millionaire for Life replaces Lucky for Life, a game the Nebraska Lottery has carried for nearly a decade. The new game comes in at a $5 price point, a step up from its predecessor. Rockey expects some drop-off in transactions as players adjust, but he's optimistic the dollar volume will hold.
"Diversifying the category with a $5 price point is important," he articulated. "With price points come different prize structures and different promotional opportunities."
The plan is to launch X's and O's in August. It's been roughly four to five years in the making. Serious conversations with the NFL started that long ago. The game draws once a week, with cash prizes alongside merchandise and ticket prizes that Rockey expects will be the real draw. Jay Finks at Oklahoma and the team at Multistate Lottery have led the development. Rockey emphasized:
It is a departure. It's going to be different. But I think it's exciting.
The partnership cuts both ways. The NFL isn't just doing the lottery industry a favor. Rockey tells us:
It isn't just Powerball asking the NFL to partner. The NFL wants to partner with the lottery industry.
The math makes sense: 225,000 lottery retailers nationwide, half the adult population plays the lottery at some point during the year. And the fit goes beyond scale:
The demographics of lottery players and NFL fans. They're complementary. It's a really good partnership.
On the scratch side, the beloved Trucks and Bucks game, a $2 fixture for over 30 years, is being pulled from shelves. Not permanently. Rockey says the game remains popular, but the metrics show it is losing ground. The plan: take a break in 2026, then relaunch in 2027 at $5 with a richer prize structure. He explains:
We found we can deliver even more value to players. Even though it'll have a higher price point.
On the retail side, a lottery vending bill passed the legislature, opening the door to vending machine distribution. But Rockey is measured about the timeline and how this will impact players in 2026:
We'll be doing some evaluation of the prospects for vending, whether it's existing retailers or new retailers that might want to get into the network.
New in-store signage and digital options are also in the works.
The sales challenge no state can ignore
Lottery sales are down across the industry. Fewer billion-dollar jackpots in 2025 are part of the story. Jackpot-driven spikes are harder to manufacture than they used to be. Rockey acknowledges it.
Players' thresholds have shifted dramatically. What once excited a crowd at $30 million now barely registers. The number has climbed to $600 million, $700 million. Rockey acknowledges this:
We know what that entails. You get lucky if you get a big jackpot.
The strategy, then, is category diversification. Millionaire for Life. NFL X's and O's and continued promotion of 2by2 are examples of this. As another example, a bundled discount offering, originally found only at lottery remote events like county fairs, is now available on all retail terminals, giving players a chance to sample products they might not otherwise try.
The goal is to keep players engaged between jackpot cycles, not wait for the next mega-event to drive traffic.
Couriers: a complement, not a threat
Two lottery courier services have operated in Nebraska for roughly three years. Rockey expected the bulk of their business to cluster in Lincoln and Omaha. He was wrong.
"It's all over the state," he conceded.
Nebraska spans a lot of ground. There are 1,200 retailers, but in parts of the state, the next town is 60 to 80 miles away. Couriers help bridge that gap.
Importantly, Rockey says retail sales haven't taken a negative hit. The couriers appear to be reaching new players rather than poaching existing retail customers.
2026 and beyond
New games. A landmark retail partnership. A legacy product getting rebuilt from the ground up. For a lottery that started with a single scratch game in 1993, 2026 is shaping up to be one of its most ambitious years yet.
Rockey has seen most of it firsthand. And if the last few decades are any indication, he's not done building.
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