Casino gambling and revenues in the state of Maine both declared a major victory on Monday, December 13, 2010 when their opposition, the people against the now voter approved bill to open the first casino in the state of Maine, abandoned their efforts at a recount of the vote.

On November 2, 2010, voters in Maine approved the referendum to allow casino gambling within the state by only 4,601 votes. That’s less than 1% of the total 564,000-plus votes that were cast throughout the state. Never the less, Dennis Bailey, speaking for the opposition which called themselves Casinos NO!, said his people abandoned their recount when after 20% of the votes were recounted there seemed to be no significant difference between what they were finding and the original results released.

The first casino in the state of Maine will be in Oxford County. Black Bear Entertainment LLC didn’t bother waiting for the recount to take place before moving forward with its $165 million casino plans, confident that the reported results of the vote would stick. Environmental applications will start to be submitted next week and construction on the new casino is scheduled for June of 2011, with the first phase of building completed and doors open for business within the first 3 months of 2012.

A Black Bear spokesman, Mark Robinson, says that between 60 and 80 people have already been hard at work on the casino project, and that now that the voter esults hav been proven to be “rock solid” he hopes begin the process of mending the rift between them and the opposition to casino gambling in Maine.