Las Vegas-bound flights and parking lots in Council Bluffs won’t be vacated by gambling Nebraskans anytime soon.

In a decision that will ward off Vegas-style gambling for at least two years, the state Supreme Court nixed a lower-court decision Friday, knocking a plan to build up to three casinos from the November election ballot.

“Wow! What a victory,” said Pat Loontjer, leader of Gambling with the Good Life, a  group that has fought to keep expanded gambling out of the state. “It’s almost as sweet as 2004, when we beat their brains in.”

Casino plans on the ballot that year were central to disagreements this year, settled by the high court, about whether voters should be presented with the issue again.

The high court’s decision came in the nick of time — Friday was the deadline for Secretary of State John Gale to certify issues and candidates to be placed on the November ballot.

The court largely based its decision on a clause in the state constitution that prohibits measures that are the same in either form or “essential substance” from going before voters more than once every three years.

“We conclude that the essential substance of the three-casinos initiative submitted for 2006 and Initiative 417 submitted … in 2004 is the same: amending the constitution to authorize enactments permitting the operation of games of chance,” the court wrote.

The 2004 proposal backed by Vegas-based Coast Casinos would have allowed two casinos in Omaha and thousands of gambling machines in bars or slot parlors across the state.

A competing proposal from the Legislature, which also failed at the polls, would have allowed two casinos in the state.

In 2004, Coast Casinos merged with another Vegas-based casino operator, Boyd Gaming. The three-casino initiative was backed by that company.

While the decision dealt a blow to the big-money effort of Boyd Gaming to expand into Nebraska, Loontjer and others said they expect another gambling plan to surface in either two or four years. Boyd Gaming pumped more than $1.4 million into the three-casino plan this year, up until the first part of August, according to state campaign-finance reports. The company has a total of 18 casinos in six states.

“I can’t speak for (Boyd Gaming), but I would say they’re going to see the potential to make money in the state and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come back again,” Greg Lemon said when asked about chances voters will be presented with a casino plan in the future.

Lemon, who originally brought the three-casino plan to court, is chairman of the Nebraska group that pushed for the casinos, the Committee for Better Schools and More Jobs in Nebraska. Under the three-casino plan, most of the tax proceeds from casino gambling would have gone to support K-12 education in Nebraska.

“We’ve run out of legal options,” Lemon said shortly after the state high court issued its decision. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said, is unlikely. 

The decision Friday overturns that of Lancaster County District Judge Karen Flowers, who ruled that the 2004 initiative “differs significantly in purpose, object and effect from the three-casino initiative.” The three-casino would have allowed a casino in each of the state’s three congressional districts.

Such a test of the so-called resubmission clause of the state constitution was unprecedented in the state. When determining the intent of the clause, the high-court judges partially relied on previous court decisions outlining how constitutional language should be interpreted.

“The words in a constitutional provision must be interpreted and understood in their most natural and obvious meaning…”  the court wrote in its decision issued early Friday.

The issue of whether the 2006 initiative should be on the ballot landed in the courts after Gale and Attorney General Jon Bruning both said it shouldn’t because of the essential-substance issue. Gale said Friday he felt redeemed that the court accepted his interpretation of the resubmission clause and Bruning called the court’s action a “common-sense decision.”

“I’d like to see Nebraska remain casino-free,” Bruning said after the court decision. “In other states it’s a constant creep of more and more and more.

“I’m hopeful this is the end of the line, but doubtful. There’s so much money to be made.”

Anti-gambling activists already are working to counter possibly other heavily financed Vegas efforts to put casinos in the state. Loontjer said her group will create an endowment to help finance gambling fights.

Reach Nate Jenkins at 473-7223 or njenkins@journalstar.com.