A tempest brews in the realm of Maine’s gambling oversight, where the man at the helm, Milton Champion, faces a mutiny unlike any before. Inspectors of the realm’s gaming establishments, watchdogs of fortune’s playgrounds, have cast a shadow of dissent on Champion’s dominion. Charging him with the sin of surreptitious casino deregulation and accusing him of seeding the clouds that rain a toxic downpour upon their work environment, the inspectors have abandoned their confidence in him as their leader.
In the northern territories, where the dice roll and the slot machines sing their siren songs, there lay two citadels of chance—Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino Bangor. Yet, these inspectors, guardians of the game, find themselves barred from their watch on Sabbath days and the day following, for Champion has rewritten the marching orders. And it is on these unwitnessed days where Lady Luck may fall prey to fickle fates if regulation falters.
It was in the year of 2003 when the people of Maine laid the cornerstone of casino gambling into law, a decision met with fierce debate and fervent hope that regulation would be the steadfast gatekeeper. Mark Brunton, the stalwart leader of the MSEA-SEIU Local 1989, emphasized this unyielding need for vigilant oversight. But the inspectors argue that Champion, in his contempt for the Maine Gambling Control Board’s resistance to his past propositions, has now chosen a lone path, sidestepping the very Board founded to balance him.
Within the walls of the Gambling Control Unit, whispers turned to cries as decisions nonsensical untethered the team’s ability to shepherd fair play. Even the solemn matter of their earnings fell into question, with claims of unjust payment lingering in the air, unanswered. The collective voice of these inspectors, in a letter penned and signed by their union, rises with conviction as they declare Champion not just a leader led astray but a harbinger of retaliation and dysfunction.
To speak of Champion’s ventures in leadership, one cannot steer clear of the tempests past. In times not long forgotten, a cloak of administrative leave enshrouded him when words, dark and misguided, escaped into the aether through the twittering of birds—comments unbecoming, drawing lines to shadows of old prejudices.
Such is the tableau painted—a realm of games and gambles under the uncertain reign of Milton Champion. The board may yet run smooth, profitable operations, muses Steven Silver, chair of the Maine Gambling Control Board. But even he, with eyes open to the profits, can see the storm brewing and feels the unease sown by change and conflict. The final outcome of this chaotic saga remains to be seen, as the dice continue to tumble, fate’s own unpredictable cast.
