The Maine legislature is considering ten bills that would make changes to the state’s gaming industry, which currently includes two casinos. Hearings began on the bills last week.
One bill would perform general surgery to the gaming industry, including requiring competitive bidding, so that the public won’t be able to approve casinos by bypassing lawmakers.
This bill would authorize issuing two gaming licenses for “destination casino resorts,” one for the northern part of the state and the other in the south. Applying for a bid would cost $350,000. Forty-six percent of slots income would be divided between various state interests, including education and Indian tribes. Sixteen percent from gaming tables and harness racing would go to education and host communities of casinos.
One of the 10 bills would allow veterans organizations to operate slot machines. Similar bills have failed in the past. Another would allow the Maliseet tribe to operate a casino with 350 slots on its reservation as long as the voters of Aroostook County approve. Another bill would allow the Penobscot Nation to offer electronic Class II gaming. Currently they are restricted to paper bingo.
Last year the legislature commissioned a report from WhiteSand Gaming on the potential for more casinos. The report recommended adding a large casino and a smaller one.
The existing casinos, the Oxford Casino and Hollywood Slots in Bangor, both oppose more gaming, saying it will ruin their businesses.
Mike Mahoney of Hollywood Casino, told lawmakers, “We have real concerns about how fragile and how saturated the gaming industry is in Maine and in New England in general.” The Hollywood was the first casino to open in Maine. Recently it asked for property tax relief because of a decline in business.
Senator Linda Valentino has asked for 10 years to rein in casinos and put their expansion under the control of the state. “Things have finally lined up,” she said with satisfaction last week.
Rather than casinos writing the rules under which they operate, she has sought to put that under state control. Under her bill the state would be divided into five gaming regions. A state commission would solicit bids for the three regions that don’t have them, with license fees set at $5 million.
Governor Paul LePage isn’t a fan of expanded gaming of any kind. In a letter to members of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, Hank Fenton, deputy counsel for LePage, said the governor opposes several bills that would open the door to more gambling.
Some critics don’t have much confidence in the WhiteSand report because a gaming consultant prepared it.
Carroll Conley, executive director of the Christian Civic League questions the contention that a new casino in the south would only cut 20 percent of the Oxford casino’s profits.
Conley also contends that the people shown their opposition to more casinos by rejecting several proposals in recent years.
The Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway’s General Manager Jose Flores points to a study by regional gaming expert Clyde Barrow that contends that the Oxford took about 19 percent of the Hollywood’s profits when it opened in 2012.
“Gaming is still a relatively new industry to Maine, and we are just now seeing what sort of a playing field exists with two operating casinos in this state,” said Flores last week.
Barrow’s study, done for Churchill Downs when he was director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, explored cannibalization of gaming in the region. It commissioned the report shortly after acquiring the Oxford Casino, which it still owns.
Barrow projected that the Oxford could lose half its revenue and the Hollywood casino see a 30 percent loss to a southern casino.
Jack Sours, general manager of Oxford Casino, said, “Oxford County is slowly starting to rebound as a result of the economic opportunity Oxford Casino has created. Casino expansion will put an end to this success.”
However, Rep. Henry John Bear, a non-voting member of the legislature, who represents the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, is optimistic that he tribe will now be able to build the casino it has long sought.
Something will happen,” he told the Press Herald last week. “There’s going to be some implementation of the gaming study recommendations.”
