Maine iGaming: Caesars Expands Wabanaki Tribes Partnership

Maine hasn't even opened its online casino market yet, and it's already fighting off a lawsuit. That hasn't stopped Caesars Entertainment from doubling down: the operator is extending its sports betting partnership with three Wabanaki Tribes to cover online casino gaming once the state's regulated iGaming market goes live later this year.

The tribes involved — the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Mi'kmaq Nation, and the Penobscot Nation — already hold exclusive rights to online sports betting in Maine alongside Caesars and DraftKings. DraftKings, for its part, partners with the fourth Wabanaki nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Under the new deal, Caesars will bring in employment and development opportunities for the tribes plus an undisclosed financial investment, on top of the sportsbook infrastructure it built with them starting in September 2024, when it became the first operator to take retail sports bets in Maine.

Assuming the launch goes ahead, Caesars plans to bring 3 separate online casino brands into Maine: Caesars Palace Online Casino, Horseshoe Online Casino, and Caesars Sportsbook & Casino. It's a playbook the company has already run in several other states, and one it's about to repeat again next month in Alberta, Canada, when that province opens to regulated operators.

Caesars Digital President Eric Hession framed the expansion as a natural next step for the tribal relationship, describing the sports wagering experience the two sides have built together as "strong and responsible."

None of this happens without Legislative Document 1164, the bill Governor Janet Mills let pass into law in January without a veto. LD 1164 hands the Wabanaki Tribes exclusive rights to online casino gaming in Maine, while still letting them bring in outside vendors — essentially mirroring the structure already used for sports betting.

The numbers: an 18% tax rate on iGaming revenue (bumped up from an original 16% Senate proposal), with lawmakers projecting more than $3.5 million in extra tax revenue by FY2027. If the timeline holds, Maine becomes the eighth state in the US to legalize online casino gaming — and could go live as early as the end of July, 90 days after the House session wrapped in late April.

This is where Maine's rollout stops being simple. Churchill Downs, through its Oxford Casino Hotel, filed suit against the Maine Gambling Control Unit in January, arguing the tribal-exclusivity model amounts to a "race-based monopoly" that violates equal protection principles and oversteps constitutional limits on economic protectionism. The company wants the courts to freeze the law before the market can open.

PENN Entertainment isn't a plaintiff, but CEO Jay Snowden made the company's position clear on a Q4 2025 earnings call, pointing to two decades of operating Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway in Bangor and hundreds of millions in investment, only to watch the state hand exclusive iGaming rights to "a third party that's never invested a dollar in the industry." Even Maine's own gambling regulator, the MGCU, has voiced concern that the framework sets up a monopoly.

DraftKings hasn't said what its Maine casino strategy looks like yet. Rush Street Interactive has been more vocal, company president Kyle Sauers said in January that Maine looks like a strong fit for BetRivers, pointing to RSI's track record of tribal partnerships in states like Michigan and West Virginia as proof the company knows how to work with, not against, tribal operators.

Whether Maine's model survives the legal challenge intact will likely shape how other states structure tribal iGaming deals going forward. For now, Caesars is betting the market opens on schedule, and betting on the tribes it's already in business with to get there first.