History Main / OfferVoidInNebraska

* In November 2013, New Jersey legalized internet gambling, partly to try to reverse a long decline in gambling revenues for the state with the rise of casinos in New York and Pennsylvania drawing away would-be tourists to Atlantic City. Radio ads advertising this always add that accounts made are only valid in the state of New Jersey (the law stipulates that you must be physically present in the state in order to partake in addition to being a legal adult - still an improvement from before as the state's constitutional amendment that legalized gambling back in 1974 restricted all casinos in the state to Atlantic City), needed since said radio stations are located in New York and Philadelphia.

* Connected to the above, Hellman's mayonnaise is advertised as "Best Foods west of the Rockies" as an artifact of the GreatDepression, when Best Foods bought Hellman's and didn't want to change their brand name in a large geographical area for an expensive amount during an inconvenient time; eventually it stuck. McCormick spices also did the same thing for Schilling in the west for years. In both cases though, little was different besides the label and a slight change in the jingle.
* Massachusetts, for a while, heavily regulated auto insurance and thus auto companies could not set their own rates. Despite this, advertisements claiming "safe driver discounts" and such are constantly being played on Boston TV with fine print at the bottom noting that you can't buy it in this state. This is also true in California

* In the United Kingdom, this is "Not available in UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland", or more exotically, "Not available in the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands or Gibraltar."
** Similarly it may just say "offer only applies for residents of mainland Britain".
*** So, it only applies in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany Brittany]] (aka Lesser Britain)?
* Car insurance is more expensive in UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland than in the rest of the UK, presumably because there is a higher risk of accidents and/or car thefts. Many of the locals do certainly appear to have their own ... um ... {{egregious}} driving style.
** Related: In the ITV Border TV region, which covers both sides of the England-Scotland border, "Only available in Carlisle" appears on commercials with perplexing frequency (Carlisle being a city on the English side). It's not particularly clear why Carlisle is such a hub for novel products like Pop Tarts.
** The United Kingdom [[BritainVersusTheUK contains several nations]] with their own laws and regulations, so it makes sense that doing business across these borders sometimes runs into barriers. Northern Ireland is also separated from the other UK nations by sea (though not from the Republic of Ireland, but this is an entirely different sovereign state to the UK), so it's harder to deliver stuff - Orkney and Shetland sometimes get excluded for the same reason.
** This is played with in a TV advertisement for an insurance company who only operate in Northern Ireland which includes the slogan "Excludes England, Scotland and Wales" as a "disclaimer."
** One particularly notable thing is that, despite that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are countries right next to each other, with a barely-existent border, and are so small that people prefer referring to them as one... there are still loads of offers open to Northern Ireland but not the Republic of Ireland, simply because the former is a UK nation while the latter isn't!
** Although ''Webcomic/RealLifeComics'' [[http://www.reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=title-1897 offers another explanation.]]
** Averted in the Republic of Ireland where most offers are made available to "viewers in the North", despite Northern Ireland legally being a different country, largely for nationalistic reasons. Often a second phone line will be set up to cater for Northern Ireland.

** Greenland is a bit of an oddity, being part of Denmark and therefore Europe legally and economically, but much closer to North America geographically. Have they ever considered seceding from Denmark and joining Canada?
*** Yes, or joining the US or become independent or whatnot and Denmark would love to be rid of Greenland. But they want the Danes to pay a fortune since Greenland is heavily subsidized by Denmark, and they want to keep their hospitals. The Danes are willing to keep paying that subsidy while Greenland is part of Denmark, but not for an independent county, or to get rid of Greenland. Pretty much the same for the Faeroe Islands.

* Frequent in Spain, the phrase "valid in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands" is stated in most ads, thus excluding the far from the mainland Canary Islands.
** And also excluding Ceuta and Melilla, the two north-african cities that have special taxes (just as Canary Islands).
** However is not strange seeing that Balearic Islands are also excluded, resulting in "only valid in the Peninsula".
** There's also an inversion. Sometimes these ads state that the offer is valid in "Spain, Andorra and/or Gibraltar".
** The funnier ones are the contest ads on daytime TV which explain in a long paragraph that you can enter from everywhere but Gibraltar and el Hierro, listing ''all the islands separately'', and then tagging on that you can't enter from Gibraltar or el Hierro - presumably because Gibraltar's part of the UK and el Hierro's a volcano in the middle of the Atlantic, just off the coast of Central Africa.

* Massachusetts, for a while, heavily regulated auto insurance and thus auto companies could not set their own rates. Despite this, advertisements claiming "safe driver discounts" and such are constantly being played on Boston TV with fine print at the bottom noting that you can't buy it in this state. This ia also true in California

* Massachusetts, for a while, heavily regulated auto insurance and thus auto companies could not set their own rates. Despite this, advertisements claiming "safe driver discounts" and such are constantly being played on Boston TV with fine print at the bottom noting that you can't buy it in this state.
** These ads, were, of course, aimed at viewers in New Hampshire. (Much of southern New Hampshire television is broadcast from Boston).
** Also true in California

** Although ''Webcomic/RealLifeComics'' [[http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/070817.html offers another explanation...]]

* Many fast food discounts in the United States are void in Alaska and Hawaii. There's good reason for this. Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US, but are not in the contiguous US, so it takes more money to get the product shipped out there.

* If you want to get past these, just Google Proxy Mate, Hula Unblocker (both for Firefox and Chrome), or just learn how to do proxies.

* Due to market eccentricities, TheWB was unavailable directly in the Mobile, Alabama area due to their station, WFGX being licensed to the beach community of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, which was ninety miles away (and much closer to Panama City than their home market) and actually only able to cover the Pensacola half of the market, and was unable to move closer. Cable providers refused to pick it up because of a terrible signal and schedule outside of network time. Eventually even The WB tired of this and took their affiliation to Gulf Shores-licensed WFNA, which actually covers the whole market. WFGX was thus stuck with their terrible schedule and Jewelry Television (and wasn't even considered for TheCW at all) until MyNetworkTV came along, and even then was stuck with no cable coverage in Alabama. Only after the digital age where it was able to move their tower, and it was bundled in with their sister ABC station in Pensacola, were they able to finally get viewership in Mobile.

* Due to market eccentricities, TheWB was unavailable directly in the Mobile, Alabama area due to their station, WFGX being licensed to the beach community of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, which was ninety miles away (and much closer to Panama City than their home market) and actually only able to cover the Pensacola half of the market, and was unable to move closer. Cable providers refused to pick it up because of a terrible signal and schedule outside of network time. Eventually even The WB tired of this and took their affiliation to Gulf Shores-licensed WFNA, which actually covers the whole market. WFGX was thus stuck with their terrible schedule and Jewelry Television until MyNetworkTV came along, and even then was stuck with no cable coverage in Alabama. Only after the digital age where it was able to move their tower, and it was bundled in with their sister ABC station in Pensacola, were they able to finally get viewership in Mobile.

* Charter Communications has "Open to legal US residents of the 48 states (including DC) except New York and Florida.
* If you grew up in the Mobile metropolitan area (Alabama side) and from '95-'01; and wanted to watch programming from the TheWB/KidsWB, you are out of luck. WFGX was never viewable in Mobile since it's orginal launch. (most of the KidsWB and The WB programing was aired on CartoonNetwork and other cable channel) Despites WFGX was part of the Mobile market, it's only avabilbe in Pensacola area (Florida side). When the national version of WGN lost its broadcasting rights in 1999, The WB became fully unavabilbe on local cable prodivers until it was averted by a dupiclae of a infomacal channel on Comcast and then, WFNA (formely WBPG when it's first launch) in September 2001 until it's network's clourse.
** MyNetworkTV was on a simalar case since it's original luanch also until I was fully averted in summer 2010

** There are only three countries in Latin America: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. [[SarcasmMode Chile and Colombia are only 1 square meter big so they don't count]]...usually

** The United Kingdom [[BritainVersusTheUK contains several nations]] with their own laws and regulations, so it makes sense that doing business across these borders sometimes runs into barriers. Northern Ireland is also separated from the other UK nations by sea (though not from the Republic of Ireland, but this is an entirely different country to the UK), so it's harder to deliver stuff - Orkney and Shetland sometimes get excluded for the same reason.

Why did Nebraska end up with the short end of the stick for so long? The answer lies deep in some silly rules imposed by the Bell System, combined with an odd bit of ColdWar surplus.

Before deregulation of telephone services and the later cellphone revolution, the phone company (and we mean ''the'' phone company--in most places in the US, telephone service was a Bell monopoly) had no incentive to expand the infrastructure of any state more than what was necessary for its residents. The sole exception was Nebraska, because the Strategic Air Command or SAC (the Air Force command tasked with managing the Air Force's nuclear weapons) was based in Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha and needed [[CrazyPrepared insane amounts of incoming phone lines as insurance]] in the case of an attack. Needless to say, most of those lines went unused 365 days a year.

Mail-order companies, and especially those taking advantage of the new 800 service, saw potential in the infrastructure and petitioned Northwestern Bell and the government to let them make use of it. They agreed with the proviso that the businesses would be cut off if the Soviets attacked (well duh). There was a bigger problem, though: At the time, using the same 800 number both for calls within a specific state and calls from one state to another was ''against telephone company rules'', one of many self-serving, seemingly random provisos people had to live with back in the Bell days. Sellers therefore had the choice of confusing their customers with two 800 numbers, one for callers within Nebraska and one for callers living in the rest of the country, or just having the one 800 number and barring Nebraska residents from calling (and possibly advertising a local number on local Omaha TV stations?). Most chose the latter.

As more call centers set up shop in Omaha, Northwestern Bell built more and more infrastructure to the point that the number of lines going into call centers dwarfed those originally used by the SAC. The rules about 800 numbers didn't change until the mid 1990s, when the SAC disbanded into the current STRATCOM. AndNowYouKnow.

The actual most likely U.S. state to be excluded from an offer broadcast on TV these days is Tennessee, with its strict advertising regulations (the absence of state income/interest taxes means shopping local is crucial). Alaska and Hawaii are also common exclusions for physical items, most likely as a result of the added shipping fees that come from delivering to non-contiguous states. This trope is not exclusive to America -- in {{UsefulNotes/Canada}}, Quebec is often excluded from certain products and services due to both gambling laws and French language requirements. And in the UK, UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland misses out on a lot, but islands off the British Mainland may also find themselves exempt because the Royal Mail and most commercial couriers charge extra to mail packages to them.

Compare to NoExportForYou.

** See also the many real-world competitions on the ''World of Warcraft'' website, as well as the recently launched Arena Tournaments. In Europe, many countries within the EU are prohibited from entering ''any'' such competition due to national laws that are beyond Blizzard's control. Regardless, [[MisBlamed guess who gets the blame for this...]]

* Spore recently had an expansion pack which was announced available to all players in the US, except residents of Maine.

* A recent variation has appeared in an ad campaign with the disclaimer "offer not available in Manitoba"

* Lampshaded by Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's ''Series/PardonTheInterruption''. After the standard half hour, he and Mike Wilbon "toss it up to ''SportsCenter''," but briefly interrupt (no pun intended) the latter show with an extra segment, the "Big Finish," During which they truly close out their show. This extra segment wasn't aired on TSN in Canada, so at [[CreditsGag the end of every show]], Kornheiser waves a Canadian flag and says "Goodnight, Canada."
** Though, [=SportsCentre=] has recently begun airing said segment now, at least.

* Massachusetts until recently heavily regulated auto insurance and thus auto companies could not set their own rates. Despite this, advertisements claiming "safe driver discounts" and such are constantly being played on Boston TV with fine print at the bottom noting that you can't buy it in this state.

* Ads for certain stores that have unrelated sister chains in Canada or Mexico (particularly Home Depot) will mention in the fine print/ending blurb that ads run in the US apply to the US only, just in case someone in a border town sees or hears them.

* Many contests can't be entered by people who live in Rhode Island because it has a specific law that requires the company to file a legal statement with the secretary of state before it can run a contest there and pay $150. Since Rhode Island is so small anyway, most companies just figure "why bother?"

The actual most likely U.S. state to be excluded from an offer broadcast on TV these days is Tennessee, with its strict advertising regulations (the absence of state income/interest taxes means shopping local is crucial). Alaska and Hawaii are also common exclusions for physical items, most likely as a result of the added shipping fees that come from delivering to non-contiguous states. This trope is not exclusive to America -- in {{UsefulNotes/Canada}}, Quebec is often excluded from certain products and services due to both gambling laws and French language requirements. And in the UK, UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland misses out on a lot, but islands off the British Mainland may also find themselves exempt.