AUGUSTA (AP) – The contentious fight over whether to allow a casino in Maine was the most expensive campaign ever waged in Maine, according to new finance reports released Tuesday.

Think About It, a political action committee that promoted the casino, spent nearly $7 million on the campaign through Dec. 9. Casinos No!, the leading opposition group, reported spending more than $3.1 million.

By a 2-1 margin, voters on Nov. 4 rejected a referendum that would have allowed the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indian tribes to build a casino in Maine. The tribes, working with a Las Vegas development company, intended to build a $650 million resort and casino with Sanford being the most likely location.

Although Think About It spent more than twice as much as Casinos No! during the campaign, Casinos No! pumped more than $460,000 into its campaign after Oct. 23, while Think About It spent only $128,000 during the same period.

“If Vegas ever wants to come back and do this sort of thing again, they’re going to think twice,” said Dennis Bailey, who headed Casinos No! “They had the all the money they needed and the best people they could find. If you can’t put a successful campaign together with what they had, then you’ve got to be riding the wrong horse.”

Tom Tureen, a Portland lawyer representing the tribes, and Erin Lehane, a spokeswoman for the pro-casino campaign, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Overall, the casino campaign spent more by far than any other referendum campaign ever held in Maine.

The next-costliest referendum campaign appeared to be a $5.5 million effort to keep Maine Yankee open in 1987, according to Bangor Daily News records.

It also surpassed the most expensive individual campaign.

In the 2002 U.S. Senate race, Sen. Susan Collins and challenger Chellie Pingree reporting spending more than $7.9 million between them.

All of the contributions to Think About It during the final phase of the campaign came from Tureen and Marnell Corrao of Las Vegas, the company that hoped to build the casino.

The largest end-of-campaign contributions to Casinos No! included $100,000 from Burt’s Bees Inc. of Durham, N.C.; $50,000 from MBNA; $50,000 from Donald Sussman of Greenwich, Conn.; and $25,000 from Sheryl Crockett Tishman of New York City.

AP-ES-12-17-03 0216EST