Maine Tribal Online Sports Betting Bill Moves, Casinos Grumble

Lawmakers in Pine Tree State approved a bill Midweek that would giftwrap a time to come peregrine sports betting securities industry for the state’s quaternity recognized tribes. But a belatedly amendment, which had the blessing of the tribes, would reserve the state’s two casinos to tender in the flesh(p) retail betting at their properties.

The Judiciary Committee, which is composed of members of the House and Senate, innovative the vizor by an 8-6 vote.

Sports betting is just 1 facet of the lawmaking that in the end seeks to offer the tribes small sovereignty gains. This includes the remotion of certain tell sales taxes and body politic income taxes within their territories. The packet was brokered between the tribes and Gov. Janet Robert Mills (D).

During her election campaign, Robert Mills promised to remedy some of the imbalances betwixt tribal monarch rights inward Pine Tree State and those enjoyed by tribes inwards other states.

But last year, she vetoed a bill that would have given tribes the same rights as to the highest degree Native American groups, including the compensate to offer up gaming on their lands. She called the statute law “flawed.”

Raw Deal

Some observers believe Native American tribes got a new deal inward Maine. Under the federal Indian Gaming Regulation Act, 1988 (IGRA), tribes are generally permitted to extend Class II gaming, outlined as bingo and non-banked scorecard games the like poker, without say approval. That’s provided those games are sound elsewhere inward the state, which is the vitrine in Maine.

But triplet of the quatern tribes – the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot, and the Maliseet – were recognised by the ME Red Indian Claims Settlement Act inward 1980. This stipulated that federal Amerindic practice of law would not apply to these tribes after 1980 unless the jurisprudence mentioned Pine Tree State specifically, which IGRA didn’t.

The fourth, the Aroostook, gained its position inward 1991, troika years too tardily for IGRA, which in the main only if applies to tribes that were already recognised at the time of its enactment.

The Mills giving medication hopes that handing the tribes curb of the lucrative roving betting market will turn some way of life towards redressing this inequality. The Maine Gambling Control Unit estimates 85% of all sports bets will be made via peregrine erst the securities industry launches, eclipsing the retail segment.

Fighting Over Crumbs

The state’s ii casinos, the Oxford Casino and the Hollywood Casino and Raceway inward Bangor, have got opposed the bill. And at to the lowest degree 1 noneffervescent opposes it, despite the retail betting grant committed yesterday.

As reported by The Bangor Daily News, Chris Jackson, a lobbyist for William Penn National, which owns the Hollywood Casino, complained that the amendment would restrain sports betting to its nearby tackle track, which is seasonal. Meanwhile, the Oxford Casino, which has no racetrack, could extend betting at the cassino itself, he noted.

Penobscot Carry Amelia Moore Nation lawyer Alison Binney jibe back up that commercial message gambling casino interests had ever been preferred over the interests of tribes in the state. She added that the tribes themselves offered the grant to aid commercial tracks.

One lawmaker questioned wherefore the casinos were component part of a conversation around tribal gaming rights at all.

“The point in time of this was to dedicate the tribes memory access to mobile betting. That’s my only when interest in this bill,” said Rep. Lois Galgay Reckitt (D-South Portland), as reported by The Portland Press Herald.

“I have got 0 fellow feeling to Hollywood Casino,” he added.