Maine legislature has passed the sports betting bill. The Legislative Document 553 was given final approval by each chamber of the legislature and will now pass to Governor Janet Mills to be signed into law.

LD553 opens up the market to all of the state’s bricks and mortar gaming venues, such as commercial racetracks, off-track betting facilities, and commercial and tribal casinos. It will also allow mobile operators to apply for licences without the need for a land-based partner in the state.

Successful applicants will have to pay $20,000 as licence fee, 10% tax on land-based wagering revenue and 16% rate for mobile wagering. The bulk of revenue raised through these taxes will be allocated to the Maine General Fund.

Operators will be permitted to offer odds on all professional, collegiate and amateur sports events. Betting on events involving Maine-based colleges and universities will be prohibited. Only citizens aged 21 and above will be allowed to bet.

Evolution Gaming, the leading live casino solutions provider, has been crowned the Service Provider of the Year at the inaugural American Gambling Awards 2019.

Evolution beat eight other shortlisted service providers to win this prestigious award. The award recognised the industry service provider who has had the most meaningful impact in the online gambling space over the course of the judging period.

“We are extremely proud to receive this award. It is a testament to our hard-working team, who have made it possible to rapidly ramp up services to meet our new US licensees’ growing needs,” James Stern, Chief Business Development Officer at Evolution said.

“In a short amount of time, our overall impact in the US has been remarkable, with demand for our services increasing rapidly. We are now extremely well placed to support our licensees as they acquire and grow market share in the exciting US Live Casino market,” Stern added.

Paysafe Group, the leading global payment provider, has won the “Payments Processor of the Year” award at the inaugural American Gambling Awards.

In February, Paysafe brought to market its iGaming payments platform, allowing operators to plug their brands into a comprehensive suite of Paysafe payments products through one single point of integration. The platform allows US iGaming and sports-betting brands to seamlessly offer players card payment processing, the Skrill digital wallet, instant ACH, and online prepaid solutions.

The award acknowledges Paysafe’s transformation of the payments experience for both players and operators by unifying an unprecedented number of payment methods in one platform.

“It has been a momentous year for the US gaming space – and for our business, with the launch of our iGaming platform developed specifically for operators and players in a market with huge growth potential. We’re honoured to see our platform recognized, and we look forward to further investing in this technology and rolling it out into new regulated states as the American gaming market continues to evolve,” Neil Erlick, Executive VP of Business Development at Paysafe said.