With big jackpots beginning to swell at Mega Millions and Powerball, we welcome Executive Director of The Maryland Lottery John Martin back to discuss some grand trips with local winners, Home Run Riches blasts and the significance of the May sports wagering numbers and contributions to the state’s general fund.
John Martin, Executive Director of the Maryland Lottery, discussed the May sports wagering numbers, which contributed $9.9 million to the state, with over $535 million wagered and $469 million won back, resulting in a 12.3% take for sportsbooks. The Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots exceeded $400 million and $230 million, respectively. Home Run Riches paid out over $92,000 for Orioles home runs and $153,000 for a progressive jackpot. Notable winners included a $30,000 Ms. Pac-Man scratch-off winner and a $100,000 Red Five’s Doubler winner. The My Lottery Rewards app is essential for accessing new features and promotions.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Resume and run the Maryland Crab Cake Tour the week after next (after this week’s postponement) and coordinate locations and schedule for the tour dates.
- [ ] Reschedule the April VIP Truest Club winner event to the current scheduled day and, if the game is rained out, bump the winner to another day (manage contingency and notify the winner of any further rescheduling).
- [ ] Migrate scratch-off ticket scanning and rewards functionality to the My Lottery Rewards app and wean off the core app for scratch-offs so players accrue points and access second-chance promotions through the rewards app.
Maryland Lottery and Gaming Update
- Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and various events.
- Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland Lottery sponsorship and the jackpot going up to almost half a billion dollars.
- John Martin, Executive Director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming, talks about the availability of scratch-off tickets and the current jackpot amounts.
- John Martin emphasizes the importance of playing responsibly and directs listeners to MD lottery.com for more details.
Home Run Riches and Sports Wagering
- Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discuss the Home Run Riches game, which pays out for Orioles home runs and grand slams.
- John Martin provides updates on the number of home runs and grand slams, and the total prizes paid out so far.
- Nestor Aparicio mentions the weather affecting the VIP Truest Club winner event.
- John Martin talks about the sports wagering numbers for May, highlighting the significant contribution to the state.
Impact of Sports Wagering on Maryland
- John Martin explains the growth of sports wagering in Maryland, with May contributing $9.9 million to the state.
- Nestor Aparicio shares his observations from visiting sports books in Las Vegas and the accessibility of sports wagering through apps.
- John Martin discusses the rise in the floor and ceiling of sports wagering due to prediction markets and constant advertising.
- Nestor Aparicio and John Martin agree on the importance of responsible gambling and the availability of tools and resources.
Lottery Winners and Promotions
- John Martin shares stories of recent lottery winners, including a grandmother from Upper Marlboro and a woman from St. Mary’s.
- Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discuss the excitement and disbelief that comes with winning large amounts.
- John Martin talks about the second chance options available through the My Lottery Rewards app.
- Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discuss various promotions, including Let’s Make a Deal and the Warehouse Stash promotion.
My Lottery Rewards App and Future Promotions
- John Martin explains the difference between the core app and the My Lottery Rewards app, emphasizing the benefits of the latter.
- Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discuss the importance of downloading the My Lottery Rewards app for accessing various prizes and rewards.
- John Martin mentions the ongoing promotions and the potential for future experiential trips and big prize winners.
- Nestor Aparicio wraps up the show, encouraging listeners to participate responsibly and reminding them of the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positive to get the Maryland Crab Cake Tour back out on the road. Sorrentos of Arbutus, we had to postpone this week. We’re going to do that the week after next. We’ve also got the Green Mount Station on the 24th and we’re coming back to Costas and Coco’s and State Fair and Pizza Johns, and all of our regular locations in July, just in time for Luke to go to the beach. Orioles are on the field, the Ravens are mini camping, and our Maryland lottery sponsorship continues on into June. I have the scratch-offs here from the Maryland Treasures, I have the horses, all the things that I want to do this summer, go across the bridge to get to Ocean City, and do all of these fun things, and eat some crabs. John Martin is here, he’s the executive director of all things Maryland Lottery and Gaming. Any big winners this week? You know, I see we have a jackpot going up of almost a half a billion dollars so far, so I’m hoping that, you know, somebody wins that from Maryland, makes you active here because it’s June, and I want to, I want to see us get out and do some things here. June,
John Martin 1:04
you know, first off, I’m glad we were able to plan your summer vacation by providing scratch-off tickets as a little pathway for you and your lovely wife to travel to the great state. So, I’m pleased we could do that for you. We have winners every day, Nestor, and we’re waiting for the next big winner on a jackpot. You’re correct, we’ve got as we speak, Mega Millions over $400 million Powerball over $230 million And I love when this happens. Our multi-match, our little in-state game crossed over the $1 million thresholds. We have all three jackpot games in Maryland at $1 million or more, and we ask that people, please play responsibly, get all the details at MD lottery.com and hopefully have some fun with those things.
Nestor Aparicio 1:46
Well, the most fun that we have around here, being sports-oriented, is your home run riches. It’s not rich enough for me right now. They’re not hitting enough home runs. I’m 9090 degrees later in a week, maybe a little air going here. Padres come in, maybe some bad pitching. Who knows, but the home run riches first things first, and the truest club. And I know we got more winners every single day, and they play six days a week, so we’re giving money away here. We just need more home runs,
John Martin 2:11
you know. If people aren’t familiar, they should go to MD lottery.com to learn more about Home Run Riches, walk off winnings, contestant of the game in 2026 So far we have paid out cash money for 73 Orioles home runs. This is not updated as of last night. Did they hit any last night?
8
Nestor Aparicio 2:27
Nah, no, I don’t think so. Hang on, let me check. I got you’re hitting me. You put me on a spot here. I know, I know. Yeah, may you hit the home run, may with the bomb. That’s right, that’s right. Made it made a ball game
John Martin 2:41
there. Yeah, all right. So, with we’re probably up 74 four grand slams, of course. We pay off $500 for every Orioles home run, and $5,000 for every grand slam. So far, over $92,000 in prizes we’ve paid out on the home run riches, and we always forget that little game with that progressive jackpot $5 fast play game up over $153,000 top prize, and that increments each and every time a ticket is sold. If a bright jackpot is not one, so check that out. That was winning
Nestor Aparicio 3:10
last year, like it held over in the off season, right? Like the Progressive, because I always forget there’s a Progressive involved in that. Yeah, I
John Martin 3:16
mean, we definitely wind it down, and we start up a new game, but yeah, that, that, that goes on, and then coming up, you know, I’m looking outside my broadcast window, as I’m sure you are too. The weather gods are not favorable, and we’ve already had to reschedule our April VIP Truest Club winner to today for a game, and unfortunately, if that gets rained out, we’ll have to bump her to another, another day. She
Nestor Aparicio 3:43
already won a lot of money, hopefully. Whenever it happens, there’s grand slams, or at least three, like you know, with that,
John Martin 3:48
that’s that’s the positive spin on this. This is all happening for a greater purpose. And while I don’t know, we can guarantee two grand slams like we did several weeks ago, it’d be nice if she could get a salami, a grand salami in this thing would would help her.
Nestor Aparicio 4:03
Yeah, I need more victories. I do. John Martin is here. He’s the executive director of all things Maryland Lottery and Gaming. We always encourage people to play responsibly while we’re on the sports bet here. You are also the head of sports gaming in Maryland as well. I, you know, when I go out. I was at Costa’s last week. I see people playing on their phones, people are gambling kind of quietly unto themselves. And then at the end of the month, you get this timpani, because, like, it literally it adds up. May was a pretty big month for sports wagering. I don’t know, you have to tell me why I’m thinking, like, yeah, horse races, playoff games, baseball’s much more of a bettable game now than maybe it was 10 years ago. Now that it’s certainly online, but May was a big month, huh?
8John Martin 4:49
It was, and numbers are being released. This is breaking news as we speak. Numbers are being released now throughout the media outlets, and in the month of May, sports wagering contributed 9.9 $9 million to the state. Now, how we get there is that the wagering, it’s over $535 million wagered in the month of May, and players won back over $469,000 which means 12.3% was left for the for the sports books, which is kind of a healthy month, that’s that’s a good take to have double digits on that, and that 9.9 for the month of May raises our 11 month year total for the fiscal year up over $124 million far eclipsing last year’s total of $89 million and you know what, I’d love to explain it to you. Somebody’s got to explain it to me first. And I think, I think what’s happening just in the, in the consciousness in sports wagering all over the country is that we’ve raised the floor. I mean, in sports, right? You talk about the floor and the ceiling, where are you? And with what, what we once thought was the floor in sports wagering, I think, has grown significantly. One, the continued accessibility to I think these nasty little things called prediction markets, and in kind of get people thinking about that, obviously the constant noise on odds and lines, and and that it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube on that, I mean, that’s that’s got to be really looked at. If someone really is concerned about tempering that, that advertising and promotional aspect of it, that’s going to take more than you and me to do that. So, I think what we once thought would be maybe a couple million dollars a month, now in a relatively quiet month, yeah, you’ve got the NBA, the NHL, you’ve got playoffs, but those are very finite numbers of games. It’s not like the games
Nestor Aparicio 6:49
happening every day, though, right? That is literally once it’s on your app and you’re inclined. And I should say this, and full disclosure, I was in Vegas last week when you and I did the show. I was out chasing Bryan Adams. I was going to the West Coast to see Rush, and I spent, you know, three, four days just walking around Vegas. And when you walk around Vegas, you walk in and out of sports books and different things. I watched the Orioles in the afternoon because they were playing in the afternoon out there, and they were on television playing the Red Sox, playing the Blue Jays, and I walked in and out of sports books, which used to be the only place, right, for most of my 35 years on the air. The first 30 years on the air, that was, you know, get the temperature, you know, like all the sheets, it looks the same, all the sheets of paper there with the futures, where I could grab it and say, oh, the Ravens are 11 to one, or, you know, to win the Super Bowl, all of those things are there, except they’re in your phone now. You don’t have to go to Vegas to do that, and you can act upon all of that. I’m not a wager, you know that. I’m not a sports gambler, I’m not a line guy. I’ve never really, in 35 years, discussed it as the proposition the way I now hear it in sports radio, where a lot of it is more gambling oriented, and discussing the games, I discuss injuries and who won and who lost, not whether they covered the spread, but the vaguest part of that and the allure of that, that’s now in your pocket for the people that play, and again, I want people to do this responsibly, and that’s all in the eye of the beholder as to who you are, but it’s so available now, and I think that that would lend itself to, yeah, put five bucks on whether Alonzo is going to hit a home run right now, right, or something like to those kinds of degrees that that was just never there before. And now that it’s there, I’m not shocked that the numbers are up this time of year, but I am a little weirded out that I’m thinking like baseball was not something that was ever considered to be a primary sports, not even in Vegas, they didn’t eat off of baseball games in June and July series, right. We’re getting to the point now where I think, like World Cups this week, I mean, World Cup, of all the things you could bet on every four years in the world, World Cup would be right up there with March Madness around here, and now that it’s here, I would think this is going to be a big month too, John.
John Martin 9:03
I would agree with that, and I’m interested from your assessment in walking around Las Vegas. Did you see people in the sports books?
Nestor Aparicio 9:12
Not as much.
John Martin 9:13
No, not as much again. I remember, like, like you do back in the day, where especially if it was a big event, it was wall to wall in there, right. Well, let me say this.
Nestor Aparicio 9:22
I was there during Stanley Cup final games, I, and they were playing in it. I mean, I literally, you could see the arena from my hotel that they were playing game three in when I was there. So I was there, there Stanley Cup NBA Finals was going on when I was out in Vegas as well, and when those games happened, five in the afternoon out there, right? So it’s like a sort of happy hour, you know? It gets raucous. I mean, it’s Vegas, it’s still a sports mecca, but the mec is now on your phone, it’s right here in Maryland. And we would encourage everybody to do it responsibly, but I’m not shocked that when the numbers come up, that because it’s there and you don’t have to go. You were to do it, that people enjoy it. People love gambling on sports. I’m not telling anything you don’t know,
John Martin 10:05
right? Exactly, and that’s why I say before, I think I think that the floor has definitely risen to what it was, and I don’t even want to think about what the ceiling is, because again, it just, the proliferation, the growth. We just hope that people play responsibly, that they take advantage, they have a plan, they stick with it. I mean, they’re all the, the tools and resources out there, but, but it still has to be that individual at that point in time making that decision. I noticed
8Nestor Aparicio 10:31
all of that going through the casinos in Vegas, because obviously in Nevada it’s a very serious concern and situation with the lifestyle out there, that you know, I heard messages of responsible gaming in front of every casino by cages. I notice all of that, so I, because I, I do concern myself, because I’ve known people that have had this problem. John Martin is here, he’s executive director, all things Maryland lottery and gaming, and the sports gaming part of that. Please do this responsibly. I want to get back on to the lottery side of things, because then we’ve got a million things going on. We’ve had million dollar winners here, right? We’ve had scratch-off winners, the Miss Pac-Man things going on. We had a big winner there as well. So people are winning here every day, too. You’re giving money away, John.
John Martin 11:09
We are giving money away on a number of fronts. So let’s talk about some of those, those winners of scratch-off winners. Shut up, Ms. Pac-Man. You can go to all the details at MD lottery.com but we have the nice story of a Upper Marbler grandmother who won $30,000 on her Ms. Pac-Man scratch-off, and I love when people do this, you know, they, they originally are unsure, and then they check, and they scan, and then they ask the retailer to check and scan, and sure enough, yeah, it’s a winner, so you know, we love that they’re diligent, that they take their time, and they confirm that, and then they make a plan, and they come a hard time
Nestor Aparicio 11:48
believing it, right? When they win 30 grand, I mean, they’re like, really on this piece of paper, really, and I would think that there would be some people don’t believe when they win 20 bucks sometimes when they come out of the gravity tour, I mean, it’s fun to win, and I think that that’s that’s what you’re selling, right? You’re selling that magic,
John Martin 12:04
and we had another winner in St. Mary’s, very similar, a woman who follows a very particular routine, and boy, I certainly understand this, you know, she had her, her, her trip planned to go to the grocery store, and she only gets her lottery tickets at the grocery store, which, when she’s running her errands, she stopped at the Food Lion in Leonardtown and got the a couple of $10 tickets for our Red Five’s doubler games, and realized that when she scratched it, looked staring back at her on the ticket was $100,000 top prize, and she thought immediately something was wrong with the ticket, she said that can’t be right, so she, she looked at it, then she went to another store, not the one she bought it from, to check it, as if they had a more valid response, and they said no, no, that was that was it, and yet she still is
Nestor Aparicio 12:57
going around to have them tell you you didn’t win, well, yeah,
John Martin 13:01
we don’t hear those stories as much. Once
Nestor Aparicio 13:03
I win, I don’t want to be told I didn’t win, right?
8John Martin 13:06
But finally, I think what convinced her is when she came here and we said, “Yep, here it is, here’s
Nestor Aparicio 13:12
a check,
John Martin 13:13
and, and that, that you know, that’s a lot of fun. And then, you know, we want to remind people too that there are varieties of second chance options, so if there’s not a winning ticket, you still may want to enter it into my lottery rewards. We have a promotion going on now with our friends at NASCAR with Powerball, and what we ask people to do is submit their Powerball tickets. You still have a little bit of time left to do that before we bring the curtain down on that. We had another round of finalists. We are awarding 40 people in Maryland $2,500 second chance prize, plus the potential to be the Maryland entrant into the nationwide Powerball selection in November, which will pay off up to $1 million prize. And we had one of our lovely winners this time come from Montgomery Village, Maryland. Nestor, where in the world is Montgomery Village, Maryland?
Nestor Aparicio 14:10
Obviously, Montgomery County, right.
John Martin 14:13
Well, that was the easy part of it.
Nestor Aparicio 14:15
Well, it’s near DC, it’s near Rockville, near Gathersburg, near
John Martin 14:22
now, now, now, you’re throwing darts on a map here,
8Nestor Aparicio 14:24
around the corner from Silver Spring, down there. Yeah, it’s down there. It’s
John Martin 14:28
just east of 270 between Frederick and, of course, the Beltway. So, yeah, I mean, that’s,
Nestor Aparicio 14:35
yeah, that’s what I
John Martin 14:36
said. It’s good when we have people from all over the state, and sometimes from outside the state, we have winners. I knew
Nestor Aparicio 14:43
Dunkirk wasn’t near Dundalk last week, so we did. We did confirm they brought up Leonardtown. I mean, I’ve been to Leonardtown. Leonard Town’s lovely.
John Martin 14:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so people, we wish we wish them all well and good luck. We have again a once we find out who our. Fine list is, we’ll, we’ll let them know, and we also had some fun this past week on a couple promotions that paid off, if you will. We sent our team to Let’s Make a Deal. Remember, we talked about Let’s Make a Deal. Nestor, they
Nestor Aparicio 15:12
wear the outfits, they wore their outfits. What did they dress like? That’s why hot dogs, apples, what were they chasing? We had, let’s see,
8John Martin 15:18
we had a pirate, we had a bumblebee, we had Disco King, we had a banana, we had everything that you would, you can imagine, and people, more,
Nestor Aparicio 15:34
I would be a blueberry, but that’s just me, I wouldn’t be, would you
John Martin 15:37
be one of the Fruit of the Loom guys,
Nestor Aparicio 15:40
you know? One year, I digress here, but one year, Halloween, my buddy Rob DeBillius used to throw these big Halloween parties, and a friend of mine and his girlfriend at the time, this is 40 years ago, they dressed as the Fruit of the Loom grapes, so they had grapes all over them, and then they had to use the bathroom, so I would just say, if I were doing Let’s Make a Deal, my first thing on costumes and outfits is I have to be able to relieve myself when I’m wearing the outfit, so anything that doesn’t have a zipper, anything that you pull up onto your body that’s a suit that you, or anything that you have to paint your face, and no, so I, I learned, didn’t you don’t want to be grapes on Halloween, you don’t want to be anything that precludes you from using the bathroom. So, for me, yes, Halloween pirate, good. Anything where I can wear normal clothing, that would be my hollow. That’s just my lesson. That’s my only
John Martin 16:34
problem. Being a pirate is if you had that hook on your hand, that that might be a problem.
Nestor Aparicio 16:38
Yeah, I’m missing a finger already somewhere, and weirded out with the Captain Hook thing, but right, but so you have video of this, these people, we have our
John Martin 16:47
man Doug Lloyd was on the scene, and maybe we’ll do one of these weeks when I’m not available, as Doug can on the
8Nestor Aparicio 16:52
trip,
John Martin 16:53
yes, yes,
Nestor Aparicio 16:55
I want his job, he’s got a great game, well, I can’t, I can’t fire him,
John Martin 16:59
he does, he does good workforce, so yeah, I like them
Nestor Aparicio 17:02
too, so yeah, Doug’s
John Martin 17:02
a good man. So, that was, let’s make a deal. Then we also had our payoff on the warehouse stash, Chicago Holiday,
Nestor Aparicio 17:10
right?
8John Martin 17:10
Yeah, Chicago, you go to Chicago
Nestor Aparicio 17:12
and you run around, you get groceries, basically, right? Yeah,
John Martin 17:14
yep, yep, yep, you run around, you get 90 seconds to run up and down the aisles of a prize warehouse and throw things in the cart, and don’t worry if you fill up a cart, you will get you another one in 90 seconds, and then you get to take home everything you threw in the cart, so that’s a lot of, come up
Nestor Aparicio 17:30
with this stuff, or do people give you these ideas?
John Martin 17:32
Wait, wait, I’m saying, I, I’m not smart, I can’t come up with these things, no,
Nestor Aparicio 17:35
I just want to credit the people that have good ideas, that’s yeah, well,
John Martin 17:38
I’ll tell you now, I’m not smart, I don’t come up with these things. All right, well,
8Nestor Aparicio 17:41
good people to Maryland. We have people,
John Martin 17:42
we have a team of people, and so, yeah, we’re a lot of fun. And you can find out all these details at MD lottery.com and more importantly, find out what’s coming down the line, so that you may participate in one of these fun experiential trips, as well as being a big prize winner.
Nestor Aparicio 17:57
Well, you know, I have a good memory, and I remember promoting these at the end of last year, and Chicago, and all these cool places people are going to go, and the let’s make a deal thing. So I’m excited about that. Go to MD Lottery. Last thing for you, John. Last week we made a big stink about my lottery rewards app in the Maryland. Fill me in, because when I, I did go to the original Maryland Lottery app that I did, I use with the QR code. When I give these out, and people were like, “I don’t know how to play the game. Did I win? Let me check the prize check. When you go to it, it tells you that you can then download the My Lottery Rewards app. So, there is a trail for this, but I’ll let everybody know that there has been some changes the last couple weeks.
John Martin 18:36
There have been, and thank you for giving me a minute to talk about that. You can get more details at MD lottery.com but we have two apps, Nestor. We have what we call our core app, which anyone can access, download, whether it’s their lottery.
Nestor Aparicio 18:50
You have all the.. I can’t get it, but 357 was the midday number. All your numbers are here if you want to check your winners, games, all that good
John Martin 18:58
stuff. Then we have what we called our My Lottery Rewards app, and you must be a club member, which is not an onerous task. You just register yourself, and that way you can collect points for prizes and drawings and things in the future. So, some people don’t want to be involved with all that. Other people would love that opportunity. This is
Nestor Aparicio 19:15
on the field with the ratings. This is how you went back on riches. You gotta
8John Martin 19:18
exactly that.
Nestor Aparicio 19:19
This is how all the second right, so you have to have that app. Okay,
John Martin 19:21
so in both apps, all of the draw game tickets – your Powerball, your Mega Millions, your multi-match, your pick 345, your Kino racetracks, and your Fast Play tickets – you can scan all of those games on both apps. On the draw game tickets, the scratch-off, the Schmutz tickets, we are migrating people to the My Lottery Rewards app, where the benefit is, as you correctly pointed out, you can now add value to those purchases and be eligible for a lot more in terms of prizes and and fun experiential things that you can take advantage of there, and so we’re weaning ourselves off of the core app for. Scratch-offs, you can still use the core app if you’re a Powerball player, Mega Millions, Fast Play, whatever. So, all the details at MD lottery.com Of course, you must download using your iPhone or Android stores on your provider, and all the details there for the for anyone who needs further help on that,
Nestor Aparicio 20:24
sadly, here for me, I am involved with the Maryland Lottery, so I don’t, I have not logged in, I don’t have points, I don’t accrue points, so I can’t show you, but there is a login here, and there is registration, so you do that, and it probably works like my Marriott Bond voice on how many points I have, right? Like, literally the minute you log in, exactly modern. These Maryland lottery people, they’re modern. John Martin is here, he’s the executive director of all things Maryland Lottery and Gaming. Make sure you get that, the My Lottery Rewards app, because that’s how you win the fun things. Have we had anybody spinning, or we still have spins left?
John Martin 20:58
We are still, we’ve had four spinners come in, and we still have four more potential out there for the big spin. Okay, again, you can check that out and find out what, maybe view some of the videos of the of the previous winners, and come in. They come into our intergalactic headquarters here, and they have that big prize wheel that you’ve seen in other game shows, and you give it a big spin, and you win at least $50,000 So, just walking in, you’re $50,000 to the good, and then up to $250,000 on that big price wheel.
Nestor Aparicio 21:34
Roz wouldn’t show me the wheel when I went in. She was afraid I was going to spin it, so they will. They don’t let me play with the toys at Maryland Lottery headquarters. John Martin is here. I am right here. I will be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. I have the set of Maryland treasures to give away, whether you like the bridge, whether you like the horses, whether you like the crabs and the birds, or if you’re like me and you just want to like get to the boardwalk because it’s 90 degrees this weekend. Marilyn Lottie makes that available for us for the crab cake tour in conjunction with GBMC and our partners at Farnham and Dermer. We’re going to get the Crab Cake Tour back out. I’ll have all the details out at Baltimore Positive. My thanks to John Martin for joining us here this week. Reminder to do all of this responsibly as well, and a reminder to the Orioles, there’s a Home Run Riches competition. Hit some home runs this week, cost John some money. I am Nestor. We are WNST, AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking, Baltimore positive.
