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Remember the Maine!
Or at least its casinos.
Maine has officially become the latest U.S. state to open a full-scale casino with table games.
The Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway in Bangor, Maine, USA, which has been in operation for the last seven years as a slot parlor with only slot machines and video poker machines, Friday added roulette, blackjack, craps, poker and more.
It also has a new name: The Hollywood Casino Bangor.
Voters approved casino expansion in a referendum last fall.
A second full-scale casino will begin operating in the state in May or June.
At the Hollywood Casino Bangor, there are several hundred slots.
A spokesman said about a dozen slots had to be removed to make room for the 14 new tables for the table games.
Four tables are for poker, primarily no-limit Texas hold 'em, he said.
In addition, the spokesman said, the casino has hired 89 new employees to serve as table games dealers or in other positions.
Until now, gamblers in Maine, nicknamed the Pine Tree State, had to travel hundreds of miles to the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos in Connecticut to get their table game fix.
Now they won't have to, and in times of rising gas prices, that means more money to gamble with.
Maine's gambling expansion also means new notoriety for the state, which up until now was best known for being the first U.S. state each day to see sunrise (it's the easternmost state).
Now that poker is legal, regional, American and world poker tours, many televised, may now consider making stops in Maine.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
