John Martin joins Nestor to discuss history of Powerball and Mega Millions, which are both churning out record jackpots as the prizes have gone into billions (with a B).
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lottery, game, oysters, powerball, day, people, maryland, talked, baltimore, jackpots, state, super bowl, continue, week, fun, familiar, ticket, years, giant billboard, scratch
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
What about w n s t Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively into the Super Bowl season and we’re gonna have something spectacular next week in lieu of radio row 28 years doing radio row, hundreds of interviews with celebrities and Hall of Famers. And some of them dearly departed. Others still very much with us and feisty, all of it presented out of Baltimore positive, all of it with facts, pictures, videos, and maybe even a little behind the scenes stories of how I got Tico Torres and Bon Jovi’s band to my set back in 2003. In San Diego, tell you what, I do this on behalf of the Maryland lottery this crazy Maryland crab cake tour thing we do we’re going to be a drug City on March the third this is my truck seat looks a little bit like Mr. Peanut I don’t really know that I’m gonna have to ask George about that. But we’re gonna be at the fountain at drug city with my middle school music teacher, Mr. Calvin stadium in the state of singers. We’re gonna have a great day that day tell a lot of old stories. It is all presented by the Maryland Lottery but John Martin is about to join us and I’ve just want to say this to you. I had a handful of these and because the last of the last ones of the holiday cast drops I have I’m gonna get some new ones from you guys for for drug study. But I gave them out at State Fair. Breakfast on Friday had Ron kasi for Baltimore magazine down we’re talking about their cover thing. And I had Jeff Brandis word, and I gave these out during breakfast, and I’m literally on the air just like talking about stuff or whatever. And I hear a woman start yelling. And I’m like, what happened? I looked up, she’s hold the ticket. She’s pointing at me. At 20 bucks. 20 bucks gets Oh, nice. I’m screaming over to one to two. John Martin is here. He’s the director of all thank you, you get to have all the fun and give all the money away. And it’s fun for me when people when it really is,
8John Martin 01:49
you know, it is a lot of fun. 20 bucks is a wonderful way to start a Friday when you were expected. You know you used to term at the beginning of the show here and I’m not familiar with I think you called it super
Nestor Aparicio 01:59
bowl with the big, big puffy game.
John Martin 02:03
I’m not I’m not from I’m from Cleveland. I’m sorry. I’m not familiar.
Nestor Aparicio 02:07
Oh, that’s right. Well, you could be from Cincinnati and not be familiar with a braid. Or you can be from Buffalo and know what it’s like to get there and hurt. So at least the Browns case, I’m just gonna say this. You’ve never been there. So you don’t know. You know? I mean, yeah, we haven’t lost you don’t know that pain. That these?
John Martin 02:26
No, no, no, no, no, no, we, we’ve we defined pain. That’s that’s,
Nestor Aparicio 02:32
that’s a whole there’s a lot of pain. There’s a lot of pain. Yeah,
John Martin 02:36
I’ve been in therapy. 50 years, I know exactly what pain is. But you know what, you know what’s not painful. Go ahead, our 50th anniversary. That is fun. 50 years of fun with the Maryland lottery.
Nestor Aparicio 02:48
Well, you’re kicking this off really soon, right? And we’re gonna see it, feel it all of this. You’ve been talking about this for like three years, like literally ramping up for this, what you
John Martin 03:00
have to you have to it’s a big deal. And we we started running it January 2, we hit the ground running, we had our $1 fast play game, we’re 50 Win $50. And then in January, just last week, we launched our family of games, our gold multiplier, scratch off tickets, and I took the time hopefully to educate some of your your listeners to what a multiplier family is. And that’s the fun part when you scratch off and get one of those funky little symbols on there. And you go Wow, what’s this? What does this mean? It’s a 5x. What does that mean? That means whatever cash price, you have multiplies by five and you win that amount.
Nestor Aparicio 03:34
How many x’s can it be to 510 which the most multiple can be?
John Martin 03:39
Well in this game, and there are four price points $1 $2 $5 and $10, I believe is the you know what? I don’t have to believe because I have I have the power to actually check that out.
Nestor Aparicio 03:51
Yeah, you have proof it lives at MD lottery.com. I know that yes,
John Martin 03:55
exactly. Empty lottery calm. Yes, it’s gold times five gold times 10 Gold times 20 and gold times 50. And that’s $1 $2 $5 and $10 respectively. And the fun part about this Nestor is on the $1 gold times five ticket. You only have one multiplier option five times on the $2 gold times 10 You have a five or 10 on you so where I’m headed here on gold times 20 You could have a five a 10 or 20. And on gold times 50 You could have 510 20 or 50 as behind the the shorts when you reveal it.
Nestor Aparicio 04:34
So it’s a $5 winner. It’s times 50 And it’s really $250
John Martin 04:38
You got it so you see how fun it is right there. You
Nestor Aparicio 04:40
did it. You did I love playing games and you know, for for all of us, you know before we even go I want to go to the lottery in the 50s and stuff. But you talked about all of this want and need with Cleveland and Superbowl and that feeling of winning and all that that goes in. I’ll just say this as we sit here with Lamar Are problems and Cleveland problems. It’s really hard to win the Super Bowl right? Can we just say, I just want to point that out because I’ve been trying to talk sense into people in our listening audience here that we should win the Super Bowl every year. And it’s been 10 years, and the Baltimore bullies have been 22 years now or whatever it’s been. So I just, I just want to say it’s hard to win a lottery sometimes too.
John Martin 05:24
I deal with numbers. It’s my job. It’s what I do numbers, numbers, and I can’t say it, but I deal with numbers and probabilities and statistics. There are 32 NFL teams every year. Correct?
Nestor Aparicio 05:35
Correct. How many can win the Super Bowl? Only one and rest them feel awful no matter where they finish? To be honest. Yeah, they have 31
John Martin 05:43
non winners, as we say here in the lottery. 31 non winners
Nestor Aparicio 05:48
and no second chances.
John Martin 05:54
This is good stuff here today. People are getting a treat here today.
Nestor Aparicio 05:58
Well, this is what happens when I’m you know, Zig Ziglar I’m a big Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar Gods six Ziggler. What was probably the first motivational speaker I’ve ever seen. I saw him speak it will will be the CFG Bank Arena, then the Baltimore Civic Center. And he comes out with a tie on he has all those colloquialisms and all that country and all that all that Texas stuff. But But the deal that I never forget and I bring it up every day is the day before your vacation. You get more done. Yeah. So this segment is going to have more in it and getting more done one thing getting done jackpots, right? Like I was driving, and I want to give free plug to whoever else your average is I’m not the only place that the mayor the lottery advertised. Wait, what, what? What guys are a lot of other places. Okay, there’s this giant billboard in Bel Air. And I keep pulling through it on like Sunday morning, my wife and I were taking a Bel Air Sunday morning drive. And I saw the giant billboard where the numbers change and it glistens, and glows up there. And I thought 600 and some million I said, I just talked to John like a day ago, it was only like 450 or something. And I’ve definitely wanted to bring up to you that this thing goes up like under a million like every day or do once it starts multiplying. I guess
John Martin 07:16
the beauty about Powerball is a little over a year ago. They went to three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. So we snuck an extra draw per week, which is why it gives you that appearance. And yes, depending on when people are listening to this beginning of this week, it started at $613 million before the Monday draw. And depending on how it navigates through Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, it rolls and continues to grow every time
Nestor Aparicio 07:46
is this something you’ve seen through the course of your lottery? Tenure, John, we’re like, the thing really does get a lot more rapid. I mean, we’ve had a couple of billion in the last year, it feels like it never used to get. I used to have three digits at the Royal farms. And you have to recode the digital as when it goes to a B, we’re getting a I don’t want to say it’s like storms where they’re getting more powerful. But it does feel like there’s a part of this with the way you I don’t want to say make the game or how it works. But it does feel like there’s a lot more that gets my wife excited when she looks up see 600 billion. It used to feel like that didn’t happen very often. Now it feels like it’s frequent.
John Martin 08:29
You know, it does seem that way, doesn’t it? The last probably 18 months, maybe two years, it seems like we’ve got a bigger run here have of healthy jackpots. But there’s no rhyme or reason. I mean, the game has changed significantly back in 2015 and 2017, respectively, Powerball and Mega Millions. And yeah, I mean, here we are in 2023. And we really haven’t seen that until very recently. And, and it’s nice when they can play off each other, right? I mean, we just came off, they’re 1.3 5 billion megamillions. And you turn around and here’s Powerball already at 613. So, you know, when it works like that, where they kind of, you know, Yin and Yang their way through the jackpots. That’s good. It’s when they’re both at the same level, then they both get hit and then they both come down to $20 million and start that that climb again. But people like to, to get involved when when certain thresholds are hit, you know, I’m like getting into it’s $500 million. Okay. Whatever it takes, but we almost see that that exponential growth when when they start to get in, and yeah, we’re getting some serious numbers now. So we should see it really start to heat up.
Nestor Aparicio 09:34
Teach me the difference between Powerball and Mega Millions from a branding but more from where they came from. Because at one point, Powerball I think was the one in Pennsylvania we were people were going across the state line. I’m talking 20 years ago, and the second one came aboard differences in the games or where they came from and the history of how they wound up both in our state.
John Martin 09:56
Yeah, that’s that’s probably a topic for you. That’s That’s a mini series in and of itself. But but the short version is this. There were two competing games and they had their own state of very parochial. You’re right, you had to go to Pennsylvania to get Powerball and megamillions was in Maryland. And then back in 2010, we had an agreement, kind of a, you know, a peace treaty, if you will, and the shaking of the hands, and we allowed each state to cross sell both games. And so that began in 2010. What we now know today, and the games are very similar. Yeah, you can tweak maybe a percentage here or there on the odds of winning, but there’s some fundamentally the same style of game but it’s since 2010. They both been available in just about every jurisdiction in the country that that is a lottery member. And, you know, we’re always looking ahead, are there ways that we should differentiate one game from another, you know, is it price point? Is it size a jackpot? You know, what are the things that really appeal to people and, and my sense is in the next though, maybe three, four years, we’ll probably see some differentiation between the two games so that you can you can maybe define unique behaviors and unique audiences.
Nestor Aparicio 11:13
John Martin is here he tries to educate us on all things Maryland lottery and gaming, and of course, the sports wagering side I said, a minute ago, and we’re gonna have a whole lot of coverage next week, and all of our radio stuff, but certainly from sports wagering, and for all that my 32 years of doing sports radio here in Baltimore for the Ravens were here, we talked about, could it be legal? Might we get it legal? Might we be able to go to a casino one day and bet just on the game, or parlays, or exotics are all we’re here, and this is only the second year. I mean, I dare I say feels like old hat, because 15 months ago, you’re sweating this out, just trying to get the thing online, as now it’s mobile. This is first Super Bowl that’s going to be mobile, as well, coming up in the next couple of weeks. This is as Frenchie Sanford would say, back in the day. This is the big one, right?
John Martin 12:05
This is the big one. Thank you. Thank you for that. The historic
Nestor Aparicio 12:09
showing Elizabeth.
John Martin 12:12
You know, and it’s interesting, because as as you get more and more states in I mean, the number of jurisdictions that don’t have it, you know, gets smaller, but we still have some huge potential out there in the country and Massachusetts is coming online. January 31. And you think of all those crazy New England Patriots fans, that really haven’t
Nestor Aparicio 12:36
done with you guys, listen, I’ve done odds on this. Okay, you’re mister odds guy and like, they’ve been in too many. They’re done for eternity. They’ve cashed their card, right? I mean, right? Yeah, I
John Martin 12:48
don’t need to see that anymore. Yeah, it’s like
Nestor Aparicio 12:51
the Yankees they never went anymore because they want too much back with Yogi Berra. Right. Right. All right. Like that mister guardians guy. Yeah, but
John Martin 13:00
the you know, it’s it’s, we continue to add locations. And we continue to work with our partners at this work the sports wagering application review commission, we have our monthly meetings, both squark and lottery and we continue to qualify applicants for both retail as well as mobile licenses and we continue to get swag to award those licenses. And then we continue to issue those licenses and do the ceremonial ribbon cutting if we need to and, and smiling and photo ops and get people up and running. So you can see more of that in 2023 as we continue to work through our RS or sports calendar, of course after the big game this weekend or in two weeks or other March Madness will be the next event which really draws people out in in huge numbers and then we’re going to go into a little bit of a hiatus a little bit of a calm period. We hope as the as the the o’s and baseball heats up. Before we get into next football season.
Nestor Aparicio 14:00
I saw the Tork you have like five new applicants, right? Like there’s good there. We talked about this, these things are coming on. It’s an evolving marketplace, but I saw some familiar names like green turtle, right?
John Martin 14:11
Yeah, we’re excited about that. We have two green turtle locations, one in Towson and one in Baltimore, I guess.
Nestor Aparicio 14:19
Qantas I think it’s
John Martin 14:21
Yes, thank you. Thank you. So wait, man, that’s right Canton, Canton in Towson. That will coming on board, but they still have a long way to go. They still have to be awarded by spark we still have to make sure that they’re doing some final construction and building I believe in both locations. So it’s probably realistic that they’ll be ready really for the start of the next NFL campaign. But you know, that’s really a function of how quickly they can move through their construction process and get their final requirements up and running. Joe Martin
Nestor Aparicio 14:49
is here he is director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming as we get ready for the big game and the 50th anniversary and I want to circle back to the 50th anniversary because it cut short a little bit in the Beginning as we get going with this thing as it sort of rolls out, and we tell stories, and there’s lots of stories to be told the 50 years of doing this, right. And I think for anybody who will see your markings and ad on the front of Baltimore positive and see ads and billboards that I talked about in Harford County, seeing familiar old logos, and the old wishbone is I would say that I’m hoping to get hold of some of those old school tickets, there’ll be fun,
John Martin 15:25
there will be a lot of fun. Matter of fact, you’ll have not only one but two opportunities to do that master. And the first will come up next month in February when we launch a kind of return to to our glory days, the very first scratch off ticket in 1976. We’re bringing it back sprucing it up. It’s called instant lottery. It’s a $2 ticket a throwback to to our early days, but
Nestor Aparicio 15:50
like gummy silver stuff that get stuck on everything. We fixed it since then. No Sure. No. This stuff gotten a lot better. You got better products now than you had back then. Oh, absolutely. So I’ve made a mess all over the carpet when you scratch those.
John Martin 16:04
Well, still makes a little bit of a mess. I haven’t figured that one out yet. But then but but then in March, we’ll have a Maryland lottery logo scratch off, which will feature not only your familiar wishbone logo, it will feature I don’t even know what you call it the big L logo. It had a kind of magenta and a blue circle within a circle kind of like a target looking thing. And then of course our current sunburst logo so you
Nestor Aparicio 16:32
can already hear the sunburst. That’s the one right there. Yes.
John Martin 16:35
All right. Starburst, I think we called Starburst. I’m sorry. Sunburst Starburst. It’s the burst the burst logo. So we’ll have some fun with that over the spring. And yeah, we’ll make sure that you have plenty available so that you can as you’re out in the field talking to lottery players and and your fans. And maybe
Nestor Aparicio 16:54
Yeah, you don’t always stir guy right have we talked about this? You know, I’m okay with oysters.
John Martin 17:00
I have nothing against them as a group of people. But yeah, they’re they’re tasty. Well, I’m
Nestor Aparicio 17:08
what I’m trying to do is because I’ve done all these crab cakes, and I’m like getting you to do crab cakes. But for our 25th anniversary, it’s so you’re doing 50 years, my 25th anniversary for the station I bought first day we turn the radio station on, and we add it on every day ever since. Thank God, August 3 1998. So we’re celebrating. So we’re going to do these 25 days in August of oysters. And here’s the thing, when I say crab cakes, there was kind of a connotation everywhere you go you get duck crab cake, and your options would be you know, sandwich or not, and broiled or fried and a lot of places they won’t fry them because of the binder right? With oysters and my wife’s like, have you waste her every day for 25 days? I’m like no, no, no, it’s weird with the way this is gonna work is its variety. So you could do Oysters Rockefeller, you could do char grilled oysters. You could do waster stew, you could do waste. Sounds a little bit like Forrest Gump, right. But there’s a lot of different ways fried oysters, there’s just a lot of different ways you can do it. So I’m just looking for a little bit of variety on my 25th anniversary. So 50 years, I’ll be out this year, I’ll have the scratch off tickets, but oysters are going to be the thing and I some people turn their nose up and I’m like no.
John Martin 18:22
I will not turn my nose up. Matter of fact, we my wife and I were out I’m gonna say is maybe a month, maybe two months ago. We were out and I won’t tell you the name of the place one because I don’t remember it. Okay. And two, I don’t know if I should be mentioning them. But any of that. Oysters Rockefeller my wife is one of those who turns up her nose
Nestor Aparicio 18:42
really just was she doesn’t like it. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
John Martin 18:46
I think it’s just the oyster. I think I think she has a thing against oysters. Me love them if they were wonderful. They were
Nestor Aparicio 18:53
wonderful. That’s why I do and I will be hard pressed in those 25 days to figure out how many’s but but here’s where the research comes in. On behalf of the Maryland lottery when donation our sponsors are going all over the state and the stuff we do is I really want to find specific recipes, you know, so many different ways to make an oyster fry an oyster. Rockefeller, some people do bacon right on top of the oyster when they do it that way. chargrilled some people do a garlic butter like that. So we’re gonna turn this into a cooking hour John Martin is here. He has equipped me with some air lottery scratch offs. On the third of March we’re gonna get the show back out on the road. We’re going to be drug city in Dundalk on the Eighth of March a couple days later, we’re going to be at fade Lee’s still a little bit of time to get down to the original fade. He’s every time I go in there I sort of walk out and I look around thinking this might be the last time but we’re gonna be there March 8, that’s for sure. And a whole bunch of other things that I keep everything in Jonathan don’t leave anything out. Here are my two six Ziggler in one footnote in the vacation like Ferris Bueller,
John Martin 19:54
no, no, you’re doing well you do well. We’ll try to hold the fort down until you get back but I think we’re in good shape you know, hopefully these jackpots will continue Arise people go to MD lottery.com For more fun information about promotions contests, what’s coming down the line on our 50th anniversary year. And looking forward to our next conversation.
Nestor Aparicio 20:11
I’m going to post the picture of the lady over at State Fair hold the ticket up. I want I want I want 20 bucks. She’s like, you bought me breakfast and I’m like notes courtesy of the Maryland lottery and gaming. And my friend John Martin. We’re gonna get back out on the road. We’re gonna be around all week. For those of you who love the Super Bowl who love our radio row broadcasts we’re familiar with 28 years of me slogging, what was incredible like, five giant things back in 1996 that became a little like Maxwell Smart briefcase here in recent years. We’re gonna go through the history of all things and Hall of Famers. I added it up 118 All the fame football players have joined me from radio row. I have them all ready to go next week. It’s Super Bowl 57 coverage Kansas City vs. Philadelphia. We don’t like to talk about that around here. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore and we never stop talking. Baltimore positive stay with us.
