![]() ![]() ![]() “We’ve been opposing casinos in Maine since 2003 and we’ve defeated them,” said Dennis Bailey, director of the citizens group CasinosNO!, who ruefully added, “This one got away.” People are very sensitive to that.”įor casino opponents, Oxford was a rare misstep. “We’re by far the poorest state in the northeast. “Jobs were the big thing that people talked about” in the campaign, said Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine-Farmington. Though the proposal was approved statewide by less than 1 percentage point - 50.4 percent in favor to 49.6 percent opposed - the vote in Oxford County ran strongly procasino: 62 percent to 38 percent. Opponents fought to keep the casino from being built, but unemployment in Oxford County - about 10.5 percent at the time - factored heavily in the 2010 referendum, showing the electoral power of the casino jobs message in struggling areas. It is the fifth-poorest among 16 counties in Maine, with median household income of $39,700, below the state average of $46,900, according to the US Census Bureau. Oxford County may seem an unlikely site for a casino. It was developed by a group of local businesspeople betting that day trippers from Maine and New Hampshire would be willing to visit the outskirts of nowhere to play slots, cards, and dice. The Oxford Casino is a drive-in business with no hotel in its opening phase. Oxford casino is less than an hour from Maine’s border with New Hampshire. ![]()
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