After being passed by the Maine Senate on April 19 and in the previous week by the House, a bill to legalize sports betting could soon be on the desk of Governor Janet Mills. The bill does not include a launch date.
Whether Mills will sign it and give Maine’s four federally recognized tribes their first entry into Indian gaming is another matter. One reason for her possible reticence might be that LD 585 is part of a larger debate over tribal sovereignty in the Pine Tree State. Also complicating the issue is that the legislature acted on Wednesday, April 20 to extend the legislative session by a day. It will now reconvene Monday, April 25.
The governor signaled on April 20 that she might veto the bill she previously supported if Augusta lawmakers send her a more sweeping tribal rights bill. That rachets up the stakes. The bill Mills opposes and which has been pushed by the so-called Wabanaki Alliance gives tribes more jurisdiction over resources, taxation and criminal justice. It upends the status quo dating back to 1980, when the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act was passed by Congress.
The governor has supported tribes offering sports betting as half a loaf for their demands for full tribal sovereignty rights. Tribes in the state are not allowed to offer gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) because they’re bound by the terms of a 1980s land-claims settlement. The tribes accepted a $81.5 million settlement in exchange for agreeing to be treated like municipalities, rather than as sovereign, as they are in most states. In a current active bill, tribes would be given more control over taxation, and natural resources.
Maine Gambling Control Board Chairman Steven Silver told Legal Sports Report: “The bill is now sitting on the appropriations table. That is where the sports betting bill from last session went to seemingly die after passing both the House and Senate last year.” He added, “It does not appear that LD 585 will suffer the same fate since this was the Governor’s preferred bill. However, with this legislature, nothing is final until the ink is dry.”
If sports betting is legalized, Maine will join its neighbors, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, which already offer the wagers.
The legislation would give the tribes, known as the Wabanaki Nations, exclusive rights to operate mobile sports betting. An amendment that was tacked on toward the end of the session gave the state’s two brick and mortar casinos, Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway and Oxford Casino and off-track betting parlors the right to offer retail sports betting. But there’s no hiding the fact that “the casinos suffered a pretty big blow,” as Silver put it. The casinos have for years lobbied the legislature for mobile sports betting.
The first version of the bill would have excluded commercial casinos entirely. Lobbyists for the casinos, led by Penn National Gaming, and lawmakers, Senator Joe Baldacci, and Senator Brad Farri, swung into action and obtained the small concession.
Before the vote Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis argued against casinos having retail sportsbooks, “This is a tribal bill for a meaningful opportunity in Maine’s gaming industry and we believe the inclusion of casinos with online platforms is going to crush any opportunities for the tribes going forward.” He said the attempt to include the two casinos would give them control of the mobile sports market.
In states where both mobile and retail sports betting are legal, mobile generally accounts for about 85 percent of the receipts. Under the bill, each tribe, which include the Maliseet, Micmac, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy, could apply for a mobile sports betting license and the state would get 10 percent of the gross. Mobile licenses would cost $200,000 and be good for four years.
A lawmaker who was unhappy by how the legislation was arrived at was Senator Bradlee Ferrin, who complained during the debate: “Members of this body voted for mobile sports betting in our previous session and the process this bill came forward through excluded members from both chambers. We had worked all this out.”
Chairman Silver is also not happy with the result. He told Sports Handle, “The Gambling Control Board’s task is regulating the casinos, and we’ve seen the casinos employ a lot of Mainers, contribute tens of millions of dollars in taxes, and operate responsibly for all these years through a pandemic and everything else.” He added, “And now you’re gonna say, ‘Hey, we have this new product that we’re really concerned about, how it’s gonna affect our population, so we’re just gonna hand it over to entities that have no experience in Maine operating gambling.’ That doesn’t make sense.”
The Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway in Bangor and the Oxford Casino were authorized by the voters 20 years ago.
The legislature has considered sports betting legislation in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In 2020 a bill was passed but was vetoed by the governor. As late as April 18 three bills were active. All three were the subject of intense backroom negotiations.
The issue of tribal rights is especially touchy since that is very likely to be a contentious issue in the upcoming 2022 state election.
House Majority Leader Michelle Dunphy, commenting on how sports betting might help tribes, told the Portland Press Herald, “It will perhaps have an immediate impact on their prosperity.” She added, “It will also, however, be another important step in a long journey over 500 years in the making – the journey of our communities transforming themselves from conquerors and occupiers among a proud people to becoming neighbors.”
Maggie Dana, chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, who closely monitored the vote, commented to the AP: “People don’t understand the depth of injustice unless they’ve lived it. The Wabanaki people have lived it for hundreds of years. We lived it and we carry it, every single day.”
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden has sponsored a bill in the House that would stipulate that Maine tribes be treated like other Indian tribes, in spite of the 1980 bill.
The governor’s office says she was not consulted and claims it would set a precedent of the federal government amending the 1980 act without consulting with the state.
The governor’s lawyer, Jerry Reid wrote Congress this note: “We respectfully request that Congress ensure that the State of Maine … are consulted in the development of such legislation in the future to avoid problems like this one.”
It’s ironic that Governor Mills opposes such legislation since, when she came into office in 2019, she vowed to fix the state’s acrimonious relationship with its tribes.
