In Maine, Did Weed Or Sports Bets Make More In Their First Month?

Where did Mainers previously smoke weed and bet on sports?

I think we all know that both of these things were happening long before either of them were legal in the state of Maine. I knew a guy who used to bet big bucks on the Pats at the beginning of every season. He had to do in Vegas. I mean, I'm sure there's some underground network of people that handled all this sort of thing.

Black market weed has a long history in Maine too. Everyone had "a guy" back in the day that used to handle all that. Trust me, back in the day there was always someone that was willing to take your money, no questions asked. There probably still is. But in the last few years, sports betting and cannabis are both recreationally available instate.

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Which one makes more money?

When cannabis was legalized, everyone seemed blown away by the amount of money that it could generate, and so quickly. It was all over the news. In 2020, four years after it was voted in here in Maine, legal cannabis sales were finally introduced. that first month, Mainers bought well over a million dollars worth of the green stuff.

In addition, there were over 21,000 transactions made from people looking to stock up. that's some pretty serious money. And the state collected a large cache of tax money from that as well. Not too shabby, really. But the amount that people want to bet, is astounding.

How much did Mainers place in bets in the first month?

It's funny, everyone talked about how the cannabis market would be this holy grail of untapped revenue. But when you stack it up against the kind of money that we dumped into Maine's new sports betting market, it's staggering. In just its first month, Mainers threw down almost $43 million on bets, according to WMTW.

Out of that, nearly $38 million was paid out to winners. So there's really no argument about which is ultimately more profitable. Interestingly, over 80% of the bets were placed through Draftkings. But there's no question, sports betting is an absolute hit here in Maine. A big hit...

Instead of pictures of weed or sports teams, let's all look at pictures of dogs!