Maine may legalize more forms of online gambling

Maine may legalize more forms of online gambling under a bipartisan bill that would grant expanded gaming rights to federally recognized tribes in Maine.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ambreen Rana, D-Bangor, and Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Calais, would expand upon the tribes’ exclusive access to online sports betting.

LD 1164 was recommended for passage by the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee in a party-line vote, despite opposition from health care professionals, established casinos and the Mills administration.

The bill was scheduled to be taken up in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, but was tabled.

Lawmakers considered a similar bill last session, but the measure failed in the House, 74-71, and in the Senate, 20-14.

The current bill would grant exclusive rights to four federally recognized tribes in Maine — the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Mi’kmaq Nation — for online games such as roulette, blackjack and others.

The state would receive 18% of the gross receipts, generating millions of dollars annually for a variety of programs, including gambling addiction prevention and treatment, opioid-use prevention and treatment, Maine Veterans’ Homes, Fund for Healthy Maine, school renovation loans, and emergency housing relief.

At a public hearing in late March, proponents argued that the bill is needed to promote economic growth and development for tribes in Maine, which unlike hundreds of other federally recognized tribes are not treated as sovereign nations but more like municipalities because of a pair of state and federal laws enacted in the 1980s to settle tribal claims to two-thirds of the state.

William Nicholas Sr., chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk (Indian Township), said that online gambling is already being provided illegally to people in Maine, and the state receives no financial benefit.

“The lost business opportunity for a legal and state regulated entity is in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” Nicholas said in written testimony. “Those revenues should be benefiting Mainers, not shadowy offshore companies or whoever runs the many apps that are currently available for illegal internet gaming.”

But opponents, including the heads of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Gambling Control Unit, said the bill should be rejected, citing public health concerns with gambling and the relative infancy of the online sports betting program, which came online nearly two years ago.

Maine CDC Director Puthiery Va said lawmakers should not expand online gambling until they fully understand the effects of the online sports gambling, which went live late in 2023.