Maine’s prime playing regulator on go away after tweeting sexist slur
AUGUSTA, Maine — The official working Maine’s sports activities betting rollout was positioned on administrative go away final week after issuing a tweet that used a sexist slur.
Milton Champion, the manager director of the Playing Management Unit inside the Maine Division of Public Security, tweeted in early Could a couple of current remark made to him about how referring to a gaggle of ladies as “girls” was not applicable.
“At the moment I assume ‘Bitches’ is healthier,” he wrote.
The tweet remained online as of Monday night. The Portland Press Herald first reported on Champion’s social media posts on Monday, however Maine State Police Lt. Thomas Pickering, an performing spokesperson for the general public security division, mentioned Champion’s paid go away started final Wednesday for a human assets evaluate.
“Provided that that is an ongoing, personnel-related matter, the Division is unable to remark additional,” Pickering mentioned.
Champion has labored as Maine’s prime gaming regulator since 2016. Probably the most public a part of his tenure has been in overseeing the implementation of sports activities betting in Maine below a regulation signed in 2021 by Gov. Janet Mills. It units apart a brand new cell betting marketplace for tribes and permits casinos and off-track betting parlors to manage a smaller in-person deal with.
He has charted a conservative path to authorized betting, initially saying it may take till 2024 to finalize guidelines. His draft set of laws drew criticism from many within the business on account of heavy restrictions on promoting that had been relaxed in a algorithm that had been loosened after one other revision launched not too long ago. Betting is now on monitor for the autumn.
Champion solely has 61 Twitter followers, however he’s energetic on the platform. Whereas he largely makes use of it to touch upon playing, he has typically weighed in on political topics. On Could 14, he replied to a liberal commentator’s tweet on a far-right group marching close to the U.S. Capitol.
“At the very least they aren’t burning down cities and looting shops,” he mentioned, mirroring conservative traces on racial justice protests throughout the nation in 2020 that had been largely peaceable, with Minneapolis among the many cities that noticed violence and looting.
Champion additionally used the platform to praise Mills after assembly together with her in 2019 for the primary time throughout her tenure as governor, saying he got here away “impressed.” He was behind a sports activities betting invoice that Champion helped craft however was vetoed in 2020 by the governor.
