Finding fun and a big winner at 50th Anniversary finale at State Fair in Timonium

Seth Elkin of Maryland Lottery recaps the big 50th Anniversary finale in Timonium and talks sports wagering as the NFL season kicks off and gambling awareness becomes paramount.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sports wagering, week, ravens, prize, year, winners, scratch offs, maryland, won, 50th anniversary, ball, talk, promotion, game, season, lottery, homerun, nest, coco, baltimore convention center

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Seth Elkin

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome back wn S T, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive one week we have around here. Real playoff penetrates baseball, the Ravens head net Cincinnati this week. And of course we’re taking the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road a couple of old friends and venerable Baltimore City crabcakes we’re gonna be fadeless on Friday. What a Hootenanny we got there in the morning we have Coppin State President Dr. Anthony Jenkins along with Larry Stewart new hoops coach, we talked some Eagles they’ve been our flagship for a decade now here at wn St. So I’m looking forward to that. I think Ruffins gonna come by for some shrimp salad and some fried oysters as well. Friday night we’re gonna be at the nest we’re gonna have Raven scratch offs to give away their to the nest where is that? They didn’t just name it after me it actually they named it before they found me but it’s right above the cupcake here at the Baltimore convention center up on the second level at the corner of Conway and Howard right as you come into the city. Gonna be 50,000 plus downtown for Adam Jones on Friday night. We’ll be at the nest will also be a Coco’s next Thursday on the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by window nation as well as our friends at Jiffy Lube and of course, the Maryland lottery to get the Ravens scratch offs. They’re going to be purple. There’s going to be lots of winners it Coco’s next week, and this week, it failed, isn’t it the nest? John Martin could not be with us today. He is on assignment. I like to say that what we should say what the report is on ASSIGNMENT Write up Seth Elkins joins us now. He was on assignment with us last month and in Ocean City. Last time I saw you had like sand between my toes. It was 100 degrees. I was eating cold watermelon. The peaches were fresh. How you been man.

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Seth Elkin  01:36

Now it’s only 90 degrees. Right? Well, it’s September in Maryland. It’s still pretty warm

Nestor Aparicio  01:41

for all of us here. I mean, other than these crazy thunderstorms and playoff baseball who knew this right like last time you and I got together was like well, maybe and maybe now. This has been fun. homerun riches has been fun this year. Dude.

Seth Elkin  01:54

There’s no maybe about it. And yeah, you know, even though we’re past those 250 $1,000 prizes we gave away in homerun riches every time you see one leave the yard you know Cedric Mullins with that Grand Slam not too long ago. You know, it’s great to see the homeruns getting hit and Gunnar Henderson has been swinging a hot bat here the second half of the season. So we give away money every time one of those balls leaves the yard. And every time Mr. Splash has to spray somebody down. It’s good good for our players too.

Nestor Aparicio  02:18

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I’ll just say this. I don’t have any clout with the lottery. I mean, I think you have a little bit of clout. I think John’s got a lot of clout. So when I have him on, I’m gonna say, why is it when they hit the Grand Slam? They don’t get more money. Why isn’t it worth like? 1000? You know, I mean, I’ve just got some money. I mean, I’ve seen the nominee we got money, let’s get some more offense and more money next year for Grand Slam should be like more than 500 bucks I think,

Seth Elkin  02:41

hey, with the way this team is playing and the way it’s it’s it’s composed and the way it’s going to be competitive for here for the for the near future. And maybe we tweak the rules a little bit next year.

Nestor Aparicio  02:51

$5,000.05. I mean, we’re gonna hit five or six all year, it’s not that much money. I mean, how you guys are giving away cash for life to people here this week, right? I mean, it’s big winners here this week without mega Mega Millions and Powerball and, and you know, anytime they get up to three, four or 500 million my wife gets involved, but you gotta cash for life story here. It’s pretty good.

Seth Elkin  03:11

Yeah. Hey, that first of all, that Powerball jackpot is rolling along here too. We’re well over $500 million. Now on that. So this is where we start really picking up a lot of people interested in playing. But you’re right. Earlier this week, on the 11th of September, we had a cash for life winter of a second tier winter in Emmitsburg. in Frederick County. So the second tier prize on cash

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Nestor Aparicio  03:33

for life is a second tier me describe second tier for me. Yeah,

Seth Elkin  03:36

that’s what I was about to do is 1000. So the top tier is $1,000 a day for life. The second tier is $1,000 a week for life. And that second year prize is what we had in Emmitsburg on September 11. So somebody out there is holding a ticket that is worth $1,000 a week for the rest of their life. And

Nestor Aparicio  03:56

they hold it two more weeks or they get the money back or

Seth Elkin  03:59

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well it’s it’s paid as in if they decide to take it that way they have an option they can take annual payments, which would be $52,000 A year or they could take a one time payment of a million dollars. So that’s the winner’s choice they got 182 days to come in and claim it but yeah, they get an annual payment if they decide to go that route. So it’s an

Nestor Aparicio  04:17

important question here because I’m getting a little older What if you take the the weekly or monthly and you die? Can I just I just need to know that

Seth Elkin  04:27

you know that’s a question people ask about this game all the time. It’s the prize is for the winners of life or 20 years whichever is longer. So oh okay wait that’s the way the for life prize and

Nestor Aparicio  04:39

my kid will be getting filthy over and done doc if anything happened to me is that what you’re saying? If

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Seth Elkin  04:43

something if some if if that were to occur, which we hope it doesn’t of course, but it would be a it would be paid for 20 years or or for your wife, whichever is long. I just

Nestor Aparicio  04:53

had to ask because I’m like, Just give me the million now. I’m breathing. I saw what happened to buffet last week. You know what I mean? Like I can’t have to stab Seth Alcon this year he communicates for all things. Merrill the lottery, we we appreciate that communication. We’re going to be fadeless this Friday as well as at the nest on Friday that as well as the Coco’s next week given out that I don’t even have the new ravens scratch offs. I haven’t been down to bother Ross to get them. I’m getting them tomorrow. I’ll have them by Friday at the end of the week here. But for for you guys with with Raven scratch offs, and Oreo homerun riches and all these things that have their nice, but the big banana and I can’t believe we buried the lede your antimonium Last week, right. Like as part of the 50th anniversary in the wishbone. We had a huge, huge thing going on out at the Cow Palace on Friday. I literally I haven’t been up to the website. I got a little detained over the weekend writing letters to people. What happened? Did we get pick winners to pretend people, right?

Seth Elkin  05:48

Yep, we had. So it was the finale of our cash bash promotion was September 8. And you know, that’s a promotion it connected to our 50th anniversary. Of course, we call it the 50th anniversary cash bash, and it was going on for most of the year. It started in February. And the last drawing for it was in early August. So we had 10 finalists from all over the state who were there to participate in an event at the state fair. And all 10 of them won money. There were five who won $10,000 There were four others who won $25,000 each. And then our finalists, our grand finalist was Virginia, male Holland from Berlin, and she won $100,000 She had the chance to win anywhere from 100,000 to 5 million. And it was a suspenseful final round as she picked numbers and revealed what the prizes were connected with those numbers, you had to match, one of the prize amounts five times in order to win that prize. So she selected numbers that corresponded to $100,000.05 times and that’s the prize that she won. But she did have two of those $5 million amounts, she needed three more. And everybody in the crowd was hoping she was going to get those would have been great to give away that $5 million prize, but she was plenty happy with $100,000. She did what she called her lucky dance, she spun around on the stage and she was all smiles, and very, very happy and we’re happy for her. It was a great experience and a lot of fun for our players and a lot of fun for us to be able to put that on for them with assistance from a number of great vendors that we work with our creative agency gkv and our E Jr. Production Company and a company called Atlas experiences that kind of gave us the the the game show style elements that we had on display there at the state fair. So it was a great experience for everybody. Your biggest event of the year, would you say? Oh yeah, it was it. This was the centerpiece of our 50th anniversary celebration. You know, we knew we wanted an all games promotion. The vehicle for entering this was $50 worth of any lottery tickets. And again, corresponding to our 50th anniversary, this was really the center but we had a lot of promotions this year at one point I think we had six different Second Chance promotions going which is a lot we always have a couple at least going at the same time. But I mean we have six all at once was was a big deal for us and but this was the big one and really happy with how it turned out and a great experience for our players. They’re

Nestor Aparicio  08:09

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just happy she gets TAKE THAT 100 grand back to the beach. When you said Berlin I’m thinking na tomberlin I mean, they got water over there, you know, so Berlin’s good stuff. Now Ken is here he gets all over the state. I saw him down in Ocean City, through Berlin, on the way through a Mako last month, communicating all things marijuana. So I know we’ve had other winners, I saw the bus driver winner we’ve been $100,000 Winners bring me up to speed on the Ravens game. I mean, obviously we had a home game last week we’re on the road this week, injuries, all that stuff. If you want to talk about week one and how your team did I’m happy to do that as well. We just get that perfectly fine. We’ll talk Pittsburgh week couple weeks from now when it’s Pittsburgh week but the Ravens scratch offs. New out I don’t have them I’ll be giving them away this week. Whenever I have in their purple, everybody’s grabbing them from me they’ll be grabbing them of fade these into Coco’s this week from me on the tour but this is an annual promotion and tickets for life and the experiential stuff and obviously you know, beat it the games throwing the football trying to win all of that that’s going on soup to nuts let’s go through the Ravens promotion because it is this the season right and it’s no we’ve talked so much homerun riches the lesson

Seth Elkin  09:16

Yeah, we’ve so we’ve got the Ravens tickets are back and this is probably the most eagerly anticipated Second Chance promotion that we’ve got. Every year. There are two ravens tickets the Ravens times to Raven times 520 $1,000 top prize on the on the first 150 or $100,000 top prize on ravens times five. We actually have seen that first $100,000 winner was somebody from Hagerstown that claim that first $100,000 prize on that

Nestor Aparicio  09:42

race they were a Steelers fan

Seth Elkin  09:45

out there you never know you don’t know out there. It’s middle territory there. Yeah. So so it’s always fun to see those winners but of course the second chance contest any non winning ravens ticket can be entered into the Ravens Second Chance promotion and there are a whole host of prizes that you can win. And you can select which of the drawings you want to be part of. There are cash prizes, there are season ticket packages for 2024. There are game day experiences. There’s the past for cash experience that we have on field at halftime during the Ravens home games. And then of course, the big one is the Raven seats for 20 years. So that one we will award the winner of that early in, in 2024 is when we will reveal that but we’ll select finalists for that over the next several months as we go. So now’s the time to enter your non-winning ravens tickets for that. So lots of lots of prizes and kind of cool that you get to have your choice of which one of those drawings in which ones of those prizes that you want to be part of

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Nestor Aparicio  10:42

no truth that you can win a chance to be the running back this week. Right. No chance for that.

Seth Elkin  10:46

I don’t think we quite have enough of a connection with the ravens to be able to get somebody on the field in that manner. But yeah, they they’re going to need someone to carry the ball. Although I don’t know, I guess I guess they’ll be okay with Gus Edwards and Justice Hill, right?

Nestor Aparicio  10:58

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, but the issue for me is how weird the offense looked and Lamar doesn’t want to run and they don’t want Lamar to run and Lamar when he designed plays. I mean, he was their best running back the last three years, he was their highest rusher right, like so. They still had him. I mean, as long as they have him,

Seth Elkin  11:14

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considering how much they’ve invested in them. Do you want him to run and take hits? There’s the question.

Nestor Aparicio  11:19

Well, considering how much they invested in him, then he’s got to throw the ball right. And then we threw the ball 25 times last week. This was the conundrum all year. You know, let’s talk about the offseason and the offense is like all these wide receivers new toys. How much do they want to throw? How much do they want to run? What’s going to be the ideal balance? Hey, no complaints here. They want to know which is better than some folks out in western Pennsylvania. I told all of our listeners here call all your friends and relatives in western Pennsylvania as we check in see how the kids are doing going back to school just see how they’re doing out there right now. You doing okay, all your relatives Okay.

Seth Elkin  11:52

Well, it’s everybody goes into panic mode when the Steelers play as badly as they did. They

Nestor Aparicio  11:58

play crappy in week one a lot. Don’t they don’t I mean over the course of last 15 years, they they’ve got slaughtered and week one a bunch. It’s don’t want 11 or 12 games.

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Seth Elkin  12:06

I though they tend to you know, the one that sticks out in everybody’s mind for those of us who are old enough to remember and I think I remember talking about this last year too, because they did the same problem early in the season. Is that 51 Nothing loss to Cleveland at the beginning of the 89 season. That was easily the most embarrassing loss that I can remember in all of my years as a Steelers fan. And there were shades of that in the game against the Niners on Sunday, they just didn’t look like they wanted to be there. It looked really really bad. So there’s no way to go but up and so hopefully that’s that’s something good and you’re playing the browns in week two and you know, there’s still the Browns I don’t care that they won. I don’t care that they beat the Bengals. The Bengals are still the bungles as far as I’m concerned.

Nestor Aparicio  12:48

I’m picking games this year, right we Christian Horton up at Hollywood casino and Perry Ville so we’re doing this every week we’re picking gays. Here’s the thing now sports wagering if you really think the Steelers think you can invest in that you don’t I’m saying like if you really think the ravens are gonna be okay. You can invest in that, you know, if you think God Joe burrows can about you can invest in. So this sports wagering situation where we have now mobile, and obviously the responsible part of this, and I see all of the messaging about response was, I really do hope people that are having problems, slow their roll here and make because this, the beginning of the season, it’s addictive for me with food and drinks and TV and how much I mean, I don’t know that I’m being responsible in how much football I’m watching right now. Yeah, I’m probably watching too much football. But I can imagine if you have a chance to wager on it, and this is all very new, right? Slow the roll. And I want to make sure you get some oxygen to talk about that. But more than that, the fact that it’s here, and it’s happening, and everybody’s participating.

Seth Elkin  13:48

Now, obviously, you know, we say this all the time, we urge people to play responsibly. Remember, it’s a form of entertainment, have fun with it. If it’s not fun, then stop and think about it. You’re doing it wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And there are there are significant resources that have been dedicated to helping people that do have an issue with their gambling, more than $6 million. That was contributed to the problem gambling fund, from the casinos and from expired sports wagering prizes during fiscal 2023. So there is free assessment and treatment available for anybody that’s a Maryland resident you call winning under gambler or go to MD gambling help.org. And you can get help at no cost. And even if it’s not you if you know somebody that you’re observing and you just somebody in your life that you think may be having an issue. You can get advice on how to talk to them about it by calling in or going to the website. So the research

Nestor Aparicio  14:42

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to have those folks on let John know that you now know that I’ll tell Doug to I’d like to have I said to my wife, I wonder how many people are calling, right I just I just say and I don’t need answers on this, but like, I wonder it’s all there you see it all the time. 100 get you can call I wonder how many people really are reaching early on and saying, I got a problem, or whether the phone’s not ringing. And when the phone rings, what really happens? You know, I, I wonder this outlet for something I’m promoting obviously, avid promoting sports and like, I guess on the side sports wagering for 32 years here, because people were doing it, and asking me about spreads and numbers and pull cart, all that stuff. But like, it’s different now. Because it’s, it’s, it’s on your phone, you know, I mean, nobody will know what you’re doing, except you. And I think that that’s, that’s concerning. For me, it should be concerning for everybody. And I’m glad that we have a system set up to try to help folks,

Seth Elkin  15:41

it can be difficult to get somebody to admit that they have a problem and to get them to take action. And you know, again, that’s why if you see somebody in your life, you know, somebody that maybe they’re not hiding it as well as they think they are, and you observe it, and you can get help trying to figure out how to talk to them about it. And you know, the other thing to remember you were talking about some of these results from from the first week of the NFL season. You know, we all as sports fans, we all think we’ve got an expertise and that we know what’s going to happen or we can predict what’s going to happen. But what how many unpredictable things happened in week one of the NFL season, the chiefs got beat, the bills got beat Aaron Rodgers is out for the season, JK Dobbins wants and they want and covered, and you have no idea that any of these things are going to occur. So, you know, it’s there’s always going to be an element of unpredictability and randomness to it that you just can’t control no matter how much you feel like you might know about what’s going to happen. You just have a feeling you never know what’s going to occur once the ball gets kicked off. So, you know, be careful about those kinds of things.

Nestor Aparicio  16:43

I’ll give you a little story. This is a Pittsburgh guy so you’ll appreciate this. He’s one of these a yinzer Marvin Lewis and I were together early in our our time together every Friday, he would have a bag lunch, and we would sit in his office and watch film. Friday afternoon. That was kind of like my education of how I learned football and 9096 9798 through their eyes. And there was one point he had a little red.up on the screen and I don’t know Donnie Brady blue coverage are up there was a ball in the air and the ball went bounced and it was like NFL follies film Follies. You know, the ball is bouncing guys are trying to dive on it. He stopped it and he looked at me I never because I always had the whites of his eyes because there’s always a film room like literally. So it’s always really dark in there with that white, projected light. And I remember him looking at me he’s like, I can’t believe people gamble on this. He’s like, I’m I’m in here every day. I have no idea what’s going to happen and I coach it all week. And then the ball bounces like that. I have no idea. But Seth Alcon is here talking about gambling, wagering, lottery being taking care of yourself. Sports wagering. Did I miss? Did I leave anything out? Are there winners that I left out here this week or hemorrhage is still going on for another week or two? Right? I mean,

Seth Elkin  17:53

yep. Like I said, it’s fun seeing the ball fly out of the ballpark. And you know, on the sports wagering side, you know, we just reported the August revenue figures for sports wagering more than two and a half million dollars contributed to the blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund. So

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Nestor Aparicio  18:06

September is gonna be like exponential to that right?

Seth Elkin  18:09

Yeah, well, pretty solid month for a month before football season really gets started. And there’s probably some wagering on preseason games, believe it or not, I don’t know why I don’t think I would want to wager on a preseason game as as as the unpredictability that we’re talking about, it’s even more unpredictable. So Robert

Nestor Aparicio  18:24

Harbaugh, you bet on him for six years in a row, then they lose a couple after all that, you know,

Seth Elkin  18:29

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but yeah, we certainly, you would expect that the numbers are gonna go up. We’re gonna have a few really strong months here. During the fall while while Football season is in progress, it’s our first full football season with mobile wagering from the beginning of the season. And now my wife just went on, I got to do the clap thing again. You

Nestor Aparicio  18:45

can clap away. That’s what I’m clapping for. Here we go. Seth, I appreciate you man. We’ll check in again. I’ll see you soon. And then we got crabcake tours all over the place. We’re gonna be families on Friday morning, man. I’m gonna bring home some some fresh fish. My wife gonna throw that up on the grill as well. A great seafood market down there. Friday night. We’re gonna be at the nest at the Baltimore Convention Center, having some some beers and hotdogs and listen to music and enjoying a beautiful Friday night and wearing black and it’s Adam Jones and like all of that stuff. I am writing a dear Adam Jones letter that I want everybody to read as part of our column this this week. We’re gonna have Maryland lottery scratch offs, not these 50th anniversaries? No, no, no, no, no. The fresh ones. The Raven scratch. I will have them in my hand Friday morning and families as well as Friday night at the nest and then next Thursday. We’re gonna be a Coco’s in Lawrenceville, all Baltimore City to kick off the season two legendary crabcakes they both ship they’re both available. People asked me where to get a crab cake in a city. Get over to fadeless at the old Lexington market. Get over to Coco’s and laurelville like I’m doing man to to those kinds of crab cakes five day six days apart. We perfect week here this week. The Orioles playing playoff baseball this weekend, the Ravens in Cincinnati, and we’re gonna be around Luke’s gonna be out in at the castle all week and then of course at the ball All park all weekend. Everything we do is available Baltimore positive big appreciation or friends when donation 866 90 nation as well as our newest sponsor, Jiffy Lube for our Maryland crabcake tour and big appreciation to the Maryland lottery. Come find me get some winners, some ravens scratch offs. There’ll be the purple ones that I’m holding on Friday and Friday night, and next Thursday. I’m Nestor. He says we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stop talking Baltimore positive