Maine Legislature passes new tribal casino bill, backs sports betting legislation

The Maine Legislature on Thursday gave initial approval to a bill that would enable four tribes in the state to build casinos on their lands. Both chambers also passed legislation that would legalize sports betting tied to existing casinos and off-track parlors.

The Maine House of Representatives approved the tribal casino bill on a 97-40 vote, and then the Senate followed suit with no debate, by a 22-13 vote. The bill needs the signature of Gov. Janet Mills, who has promoted her efforts over the past two years to repair the state’s frayed relationship with the Wabanaki, whose tribes include the Maliseet, the Micmac, the Passamaquoddy and the Penobscot, Portland Press Herald reports. 

Approval of the bill followed an early morning floor speech by Rep. Rena Newell, a non-voting member of the Legislature who represents the Passamaquoddy Tribe. She urged her colleagues to move the bill forward.

The gambling legislation was carved out of another bill that has been carried over to the 2022 legislative session that seeks to make a series of 22 changes to the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. If enacted, the changes would restore much of the sovereignty that tribal leaders say they lost 40 years ago, according to the newspaper.

Tribes in Maine have repeatedly tried and failed to win approval from voters or legislators to open casinos. Yet even as Maine voters rejected tribal attempts to open casinos, they approved two separate referendum questions that led to the creation of the Hollywood Casino in Bangor and Oxford Casino in western Maine. Both casinos are run by large corporations – Penn National in Bangor and Churchill Downs in Oxford – and are regulated by the Maine Gambling Control Board.

Lawmakers speaking in opposition to the bill, L.D. 554, Thursday said that they worry about whether restoring tribal gambling rights would lead to the tribes being able to purchase land in the state’s metropolitan areas and open casinos there. The bill would essentially amend the 1980 land claims settlement to allow the tribes to operate gambling businesses under the terms of federal law.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Benjamin Collings, D-Portland, said it may be possible for a tribe to purchase land and put it in a tribal trust that could qualify for a casino, but that was a “long process” and “not easy.”

Mills’ spokesperson, Lindsay Crete, said Thursday that the governor would review the tribal gambling bill when it arrives on her desk but didn’t indicate whether Mills supported the measure or not.

Sports betting legislation

Gave initial approval to a bill that would allow online sports betting. The measure, approved on a 23-12 vote in the Senate, would require online sports books to be electronically tethered to one of Maine’s two casinos or to one of its six off-track-betting parlors. The House followed later.

It came out of another push from Sen. Louis Luchini, D-Ellsworth, the co-chair of the Legislature’s gambling committee, to pass a sports betting bill. Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill last year that Luchini championed, saying she was unconvinced that Mainers wanted to expand gambling.

This version takes the opposite approach of the bill vetoed by Mills last year, as it would make mobile and online bettors establish relationships with casinos in Bangor and Oxford or six off-track betting locations to participate in the market. The measure still faces further action in both chambers.

Supporters of that approach included the off-track betting parlors and Penn National Gaming, which owns Hollywood Casino in Bangor. They have noted that virtually all states with physical gaming establishments have elected to tether betting to them. New Hampshire, which does not have physical establishments, picked DraftKings to run a monopoly system there.

Under the proposal backed by the Senate on Thursday, a physical facility would be taxed at 10 percent of gross sports betting receipts, while mobile licensees would be taxed at 16 percent, the same as Luchini’s original bill. 

Others on the gambling committee backed yet another version of the bill, while Sen. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, opposed the expansion altogether.