Tom Sage, the executive director of the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission, will retire Mar. 12, the organization said in a statement which was first reported on Friday by the Lincoln Journal Star.
As the executive director of the Nebraska Racing Commission since 2008, Sage added oversight of casino gambling after voters approved a petition to allow casinos at the state's horse racing tracks in November 2020. He oversaw a staff that began with a single member to now having over two dozen employees.
Sage's career in horse racing began as a security officer in 1988 at Omaha's Ak-Sar-Ben Racetrack. He graduated in 1991 from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a B.S. in criminal justice and started as an investigator for the Nebraska Racing Commission in 1993.
After graduating in 1995 from the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center, Sage became the commission's director of investigations in 2003. He was an instrumental board member for the Organization of Racing Investigators and currently is serving out his term as the chairman of the board of the Association of Racing Commissioners International.
In the Lincoln Journal Star article, Nebraska commissioner Tony Fulton called Sage a “good man” who is hard-working and diligent, and took on the task of regulating casino gambling in the state with vigor.
“This has been a very heavy lift, and he's done an admirable job,” Fulton said.
The commission also voted Friday to make Casey Ricketts, its current director of compliance, the interim executive director.
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