Maine Sports Betting: History, Current Laws, and What’s Next in 2026
Maine took the long way around to legal sports betting, but it ended up with one of the more interesting models in the country. Rather than opening the market to every national sportsbook that wanted in, Maine handed exclusive control to its four federally recognized tribal nations, then let those tribes decide which commercial operators to partner with. The result is a small, tightly controlled market — just two brands, DraftKings and Caesars — that’s now expanding into online casino gaming as well. Here’s how Maine got here, how the market works today, and where things are headed next.
Maine Sportsbooks and Sports Betting Sites
Oddfellahs Sportsbook & Bar – Caesars Sportsbook (Portland, ME)
- Address: 34 Washington Avenue, Portland, ME
- Opened: September 2024
- Facilities: Full-service sports bar with betting kiosks and multiple large-screen TVs
- Features: Caesars Sportsbook odds; food and beverage service; in-person wagering environment
- Hours: Standard bar/restaurant hours (varies by day)
- Notes: Maine’s only operational retail sportsbook; strong crowds reported since launch
Yes — Maine does have online sportsbooks, and the information above did not include them yet. Here is the verified, citation‑backed list of Maine’s legal online sportsbooks.
Online Sportsbooks in Maine (Legal & Live)
Based on the latest verified search results, Maine has exactly two legal online sportsbooks:
DraftKings Sportsbook Maine
- Launch Date: November 3, 2023
- Regulatory Partner: Tribal partnership (authorized under LD 585)
- Notes: One of the two officially licensed online operators in Maine
Sources:
Caesars Sportsbook Maine
- Launch Date: November 3, 2023
- Regulatory Partner: Three tribal partnerships (Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Penobscot)
- Notes: The only other licensed online operator in the state
Sources:
Additional Maine Gaming Venues (Not Retail Sportsbooks)
These locations are not licensed retail sportsbooks but are often mistaken for them. They offer casino gaming, horse racing, or simulcast wagering only, not sports betting.
Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway (Bangor, ME)
- Address: 500 Main Street, Bangor, ME
- Opened: 2005 (casino), simulcast wagering ongoing
- Facilities: Casino gaming floor, harness racing track, simulcast wagering
- Features: Slots, table games, hotel, dining
- Hours: Varies by gaming and racing schedule
- Notes: Eligible for a retail sportsbook license under state law, but no sportsbook currently operating
Scarborough Downs OTB – The Racebook (Scarborough, ME)
- Address: 90 Payne Road, Scarborough, ME
- Opened: Longstanding OTB facility
- Facilities: Off-track betting, simulcast racing
- Features: Wagering on national horse racing feeds
- Hours: Varies
- Notes: No sports betting; horse racing only
Favorites OTB – Waterville (Waterville, ME)
- Address: 366 Main Street, Waterville, ME
- Opened: OTB facility
- Facilities: Simulcast wagering, bar seating
- Features: Horse racing only
- Hours: Varies
- Notes: No sports betting
Favorites OTB – Sanford (Sanford, ME)
- Address: 890 Main Street, Sanford, ME
- Opened: OTB facility
- Facilities: Simulcast wagering, bar seating
- Features: Horse racing only
- Hours: Varies
- Notes: No sports betting
The Turf Club at John Martin’s Manor (Waterville, ME)
- Address: 89 College Avenue, Waterville, ME
- Opened: OTB facility
- Facilities: Simulcast wagering
- Features: Horse racing only
- Hours: Varies
- Notes: No sports betting
Maine Sports Betting – How to Bet Today
A Long, Bumpy Road to Legalization
Maine’s relationship with gambling expansion has always been cautious, and its tribal gaming history helps explain why. Back in 2003, the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot nations pitched a $650 million casino project that went to a statewide vote, and Maine voters rejected it by a two-to-one margin. On that same ballot, though, voters approved slot machines at horse tracks, which eventually paved the way for the state’s two existing commercial casinos, Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino in Bangor. Neither of those properties is tribally owned, which left the Wabanaki Nations — the Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, Mi’kmaq Nation, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians — largely shut out of Maine’s gaming economy for years, an unusual position compared to tribes in most other states.
After the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in 2018 and sports betting became a state-by-state decision, Maine lawmakers made several attempts to pass legislation, but early bills stalled or ran into opposition from Governor Janet Mills, who had a history of resisting gambling expansion. One 2021 proposal, LD 553, would have opened the market to national commercial operators directly without requiring a tribal partnership, but it never gained enough traction.
The breakthrough came in 2022. Governor Mills signed LD 585, which granted Maine’s four Wabanaki Nations exclusive rights to operate online sports betting statewide, with each tribe permitted to strike a licensing deal with a commercial sportsbook operator. It was framed largely as an economic development and tribal sovereignty measure rather than a simple gambling expansion bill, which is part of why it succeeded where earlier attempts had failed.
Even after the law passed, it took time to actually launch. Maine’s Gambling Control Unit needed to write rules, and each tribe had to finalize its operator partnership. Three of the four tribes — the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Mi’kmaq Nation, and the Penobscot Nation — signed on with Caesars Sportsbook, while the Passamaquoddy Tribe held out and eventually partnered with DraftKings. Mobile sports betting officially went live across the state on November 3, 2023, and Maine’s first retail sportsbook, a Caesars-branded location called Oddfellahs, opened in Portland in September 2024.
How the Maine Sports Betting Market Works Today
Maine residents who want to bet on sports legally have exactly two options: DraftKings Sportsbook and Caesars Sportsbook, both fully licensed by the Maine Gambling Control Unit and both operating under partnerships with the state’s tribal nations. Both platforms offer the standard modern sportsbook experience — betting on the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and major college sports, plus live in-game betting and same-game parlays — from anywhere within the state’s borders, as long as you’re 21 or older.
Unlike a lot of states, Maine doesn’t have an ever-expanding list of competing sportsbooks fighting for market share. Because tribal partnerships were baked into the law from the start, and only four tribes exist to strike those deals, there’s a hard ceiling of four possible operators unless the law changes. For now, that ceiling sits at two.
The state does allow retail sports betting alongside the online market, though brick-and-mortar options remain limited. Maine’s two existing commercial casinos, Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino in Bangor, don’t currently host retail sportsbooks, so the Caesars-run location in Portland has largely been the state’s showcase in-person option.
Maine also permits esports betting under its sports wagering rules, defining eligible events as organized competitions at the professional or collegiate level. On the flip side, sportsbooks in Maine are barred from taking bets on games involving in-state college teams, a restriction fairly common across states that allow college sports betting at all.
The Money Behind the Model
Maine’s sports betting law set up a fairly specific revenue-sharing arrangement. The state collects a 10% tax on sports betting revenue, while the commercial operators — DraftKings and Caesars — are entitled to a share of profits capped by law at somewhere between 30% and 40%. The tribes keep the remainder, which was the entire point of designing the law this way in the first place: rather than simply taxing a commercial market, Maine built a structure meant to funnel meaningful revenue directly to tribal communities that had historically been excluded from the state’s gaming industry.
2026: Maine Expands Into Online Casino Gaming
The most significant recent development in Maine gambling policy isn’t about sports betting at all — it’s about online casinos. In January 2026, Governor Mills allowed LD 1164, titled An Act to Create Economic Opportunity for the Wabanaki Nations Through Internet Gaming, to become law without her signature. The bill authorizes each of Maine’s four tribal nations to partner with a licensed commercial operator to offer online casino games — slots, table games, and poker — mirroring the same structural approach used for sports betting.
Mills had let the bill sit through Maine’s mandatory review period before ultimately declining to veto it, citing respect for tribal leadership and a belief that a gambling activity Mainers were already engaging in through unregulated channels deserved to be brought under state oversight instead. The law sets an 18% tax rate on iGaming revenue, with early state projections estimating a few million dollars in new tax revenue over the following two fiscal years.
The rollout hasn’t been entirely smooth. A group called the National Association Against iGaming Expansion reportedly began organizing a People’s Veto campaign, Maine’s version of a citizen referendum to overturn a new law, which requires gathering roughly 68,000 signatures. According to reporting on the situation, DraftKings had already retained several of the political consulting firms that specialize in Maine signature-gathering campaigns before opponents could, complicating the opposition’s ability to mount that effort.
As of early 2026, exact launch timing for Maine’s online casino market hadn’t been finalized, since the state still needs to draft detailed regulations, review license applications, and conduct integrity testing before any platform goes live. DraftKings already has an existing relationship with the Passamaquoddy Tribe through the sports betting law and is widely expected to be among the first operators to bring an online casino product to market, while Caesars is positioned to do the same through its three-tribe partnership.
Other Legal Gambling Options in Maine
Sports betting and the incoming online casino market aren’t the only legal gambling options available to Mainers:
- Daily fantasy sports — DFS has been explicitly legal in Maine since a 2017 law, and platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel operate openly in the state.
- Horse racing — Maine allows pari-mutuel wagering on harness racing at tracks in Bangor and Cumberland, plus a handful of off-track betting locations, and residents can also wager online through an authorized advance-deposit wagering platform.
- Commercial casinos — Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino offer traditional slots and table games, along with poker and racing at the Bangor location.
- The Maine Lottery — Standard state lottery games remain available as they do in most states.
What Comes Next
Maine’s approach stands out nationally because it prioritized tribal exclusivity over maximizing the number of operators or squeezing out the highest possible tax revenue. That tradeoff means Maine bettors have fewer app choices than residents of neighboring states like Massachusetts or New York, but it also means the economic upside flows more directly to communities that had been locked out of gaming revenue for decades.
With the sports betting market now several years into a stable, modest run and the iGaming law working through its regulatory startup phase, the next real storyline in Maine gambling policy is whether the online casino rollout proceeds smoothly or gets tangled up in the kind of referendum fight some opponents have signaled they want. Either way, Maine’s tribal-first model looks likely to stay the framework for any future gambling expansion in the state, rather than a one-time exception.
Must be 21+ and physically present in Maine to legally place sports bets. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.