After seven months of inaction, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) surprised Wall Street analysts by allowing the state’s Native American tribes to operate igaming. Mills will let the bill become law without her signature.
The legislation, LD 1164, grants igaming exclusivity to four tribes within the Wabanaki Nation. Three of the tribes have pre-existing ties to Caesars Entertainment. The fourth, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, has an ongoing relationship with DraftKings.
Both J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Politzer and Barry Jonas of Truist Securities expected those companies to be the prime beneficiaries of the new law. “At this time, it’s unclear if additional igaming operators will operate in Maine,” wrote Politzer.
Opponents of the bill included FanDuel, Fanatics Betting & Gaming, and BetMGM, none of which operate in Maine. Other detractors included Hollywood Bangor and Oxford Casino, state regulators, and the National Association Against iGaming (NAAiG).
As far as brick-and-mortar operators were concerned, Jonas predicted a “very modest to immaterial negative” for Penn Entertainment, which operates in Bangor, and for Churchill Downs, which owns Oxford Casino. He noted that the two casinos were minor revenue donors to their parent corporations in 2025. Hollywood Bangor generated one percent of Penn’s revenue, while Oxford chipped three percent into Churchill Downs.
Even so, the two terrestrial operators were predicting the loss of 200 jobs due to igaming, were it legalized. NAAiG polling showed 64 percent of Maine residents opposed to igaming, with 51 percent of voters likely to hold igaming against its supportive lawmakers. An NAAiG-sponsored campaign to repeal LD 1164 is already underway.
LD 1164 mandates an 18 percent tax rate, which Politzer deemed attractive. He expected Maine igaming to launch no later than early 2027.
While calling Mills’s non-decision both a surprise and just a modest boost to Maine’s gaming industry, Jonas projected a Caesars/DraftKings duopoly on igaming. “It’s unclear if more digital operators could gain access in the future, but for now we assume all others could be shut out,” he penned.
Jonas explained that no igaming legalizations were expected in 2026. Maine’s shift, he continued, made it “interesting to see if Maine is a one-off or a sign of more to come.” States currently mulling igaming bills include Virginia, New York, and Nebraska, which is considering online sports wagering.
Politzer estimated that Maine igaming could be a $200-million-per-year industry. He projected $175 to $225 in annual winnings from each Pine Tree State player. The state has an adult population of 1.1 million.
Igaming-enabled states, he continued, average $370 per year in win from players. Politzer thought Maine to be more comparable to West Virginia ($266 per player per year), Delaware ($172), or Connecticut ($257). Although Caesars has more tribal ties, DraftKings currently captures 80 percent of the state’s online sports betting (OSB) business.
Based on this, Politzer forecast cash-flow boosts of $20 million to $30 million for DraftKings from igaming and $10 million to $20 million for Caesars. Those prognostications were contingent upon how much market share each operator would capture.
Jonas’s figures were more conservative, projecting $55 million in revenue in Year One of igaming, escalating to $120 million in 2030. Maine’s official tax projections are predicated on even lower revenue still, resulting in predicted levies of $1.8 million in the current fiscal year (from revenue of $10 million) and $3.6 million in the next.
The Truist analyst observed that Maine had generated OSB revenues of $59 million in 2025 and $50 million the year prior. He added, “Igaming revenues are typically 3-4x OSB in like states.”
Deutsche Bank analyst Steven Pizzella offered a more expansive picture of Maine igaming, predicting a mature-market haul of $236 million annually, possibly as high as $482 million. His forecast also assumed a 30 percent market share for Caesars and 70 percent for DraftKings.
“Overall, we believe the digital stocks should react positively to this news, as we have an incremental legalized iCasino state, that we believe few were expecting. In addition, while it might be tough to get incremental iCasino legalization post Maine, we believe a key aspect of this is it allows investors to envision a potential domino effect, believing other states legalize, especially in the Northeast region,” wrote Pizzella.
Maine’s Wabanaki tribes have offered OSB since 2023, when Caesars partnered with the Mi’kmaq and Penobscot nations and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and DraftKings paired up with the Passamaquoddy Tribe.
Jonas’s, Pizzella’s and Politzer’s views were all expressed in investor notes published December 9.
