For higher or worse, 20 years in the past Mainers legalized on line casino playing
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Twenty years in the past this week, 53 % of Maine voters within the 2003 election legalized slot machines in Maine, by way of the creation of a “racino” related to Bangor’s Bass Park harness racing observe.
Right now, practically all types of playing are authorized in Maine, together with sports activities betting, which went stay final week. You possibly can play slot machines and desk video games at casinos in Bangor and Oxford; you possibly can wager on horse races and sports activities video games; and you may play the lottery, each state-run and nationwide.
However 50 years in the past, playing past on-site betting at race tracks — even the lottery — was unlawful in Maine. Actually, except for Nevada, from the Nineties till the Seventies, practically each type of playing except for horse and canine racing was unlawful nearly in all places within the U.S.
How did public opinion about playing in Maine handle to vary so rapidly? And did the rollout of legalized playing deliver the monetary increase to the state that its supporters promised 20 years in the past?
For almost all of its historical past, playing within the U.S. was relegated to underground golf equipment, to riverboats that plied the Mississippi River, to occasion cities like Galveston, Texas, or to playing palaces in semi-lawless frontier cities like Dodge Metropolis, Kansas. Among the many solely authorized types of playing was parimutuel betting on horse racing, which grew to become authorized in lots of states within the Thirties as a much less dangerous, simpler to manage type of betting.
In quiet, respectable Maine, with its Yankee sensibilities of frugality and modesty, such irresponsibility with cash was out of the query — and but, police in cities like Bangor and Portland would nonetheless sometimes break up small-scale playing operations.
Opinions about playing would begin to change within the Nineteen Sixties, when New Hampshire created the primary state lottery in 1964. It was a controversial determination, opposed by federal businesses, the church and even by the mafia, with its profitable unlawful playing rackets. However when the primary lottery tickets have been pulled in July 1964, New Hampshire had already made $5.7 million — round $56 million in 2023 {dollars}. Inside the subsequent decade, 12 extra states would create their very own lotteries.
In 1974, the Maine Lottery was created after being authorized at referendum, adopted in 1985 by the Tri-State Megabucks, the nation’s first multi-state lottery for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. As of 2023, solely 5 states don’t have lotteries — Nevada, Utah, Alabama, Alaska and Hawaii.
Lotteries are a comparatively low-risk type of playing. Different, extra high-stakes types additionally started to be legalized. In 1974, Maine got here to an settlement with the Wabanaki tribes to permit them to function high-stakes bingo parlors. Then, in 1991, off-track betting parlors have been legalized in Maine, with the primary one opening in Waterville in 1993, adopted by Bangor’s in 1994, at Miller’s Restaurant.
The massive hurdle, nonetheless, was to permit casinos in Maine. Previous to 1989, solely two states allowed casinos: Nevada and New Jersey. Between 1989 and 1996, that quickly modified, as 9 extra states legalized casinos. Beginning in 1988, sovereign Native American nations additionally started to function casinos on tribal lands, as a part of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
The measure first got here earlier than the legislature in 1993, when a invoice to permit the Passamaquoddy tribe to open a on line casino in Calais was floated. The invoice didn’t move, and comparable payments have been shot down in 1994, in addition to a referendum on tribal gaming in 2003. Many extra have additionally since been voted down. State lawmakers have mentioned the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act of 1980 is the explanation for these measures not passing, which topics the tribes’ lands to state legislation, and excludes the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act from making use of within the state.
However on line casino playing would nonetheless come to Maine, within the type of the opposite 2003 playing referendum, which allowed slot machines at racetracks. In native referendums, Scarborough didn’t vote to permit slot machines on the Scarborough Downs racetrack, whereas Bangor voted in favor of permitting slot machines at Bass Park, leaving it as the one metropolis within the state with a on line casino.
As an alternative of the state’s playing being managed by its tribes, nationwide gaming corporations would run them. Hollywood Slots, a series of casinos operated by Pennsylvania-based Penn Leisure, opened a short lived Bangor facility on the former Miller’s Restaurant in 2005. In 2007, it moved into a brand new, everlasting facility simply down the road — throughout the road from Bass Park, the place the off-track betting parlor was additionally relocated.
In 2010, after a failed referendum in 2007, voters narrowly authorized a second Maine on line casino in Oxford County. The next yr, desk video games have been authorized by the legislature, and Hollywood Slots modified its identify to Hollywood On line casino.
Prefer it or not, playing is, as of 2022, a $165 million business in Maine, and generates $64 million in tax income for the state, which helps fund issues like schooling and financial improvement.
And with sports activities betting now authorized, Maine’s tribes will lastly see some income from playing, after many years of being shot down within the legislature and on the poll field. Maine’s 4 federally acknowledged tribes management the bigger cell sports activities betting market, whereas the in-person aspect is operated by casinos and off-track betting parlors.
Half a century in the past, the thought of absolutely legalized playing in Maine was practically unthinkable. Right now, you are able to do absolutely anything — from a day taking part in slots or blackjack in Bangor or Oxford to purchasing scratch tickets or Powerball at your native gasoline station to betting on this weekend’s Patriots sport out of your cellphone.
