John Martin of Maryland Lottery gives Nestor a Fall update on mobile sports wagering state contribution and the Winter games ahead for fun.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
win, ravens, year, sports wagering, week, scratch offs, maryland, talked, play, john, month, tour, browns, lottery, point, tickets, crab cake, december, postal worker, nestor
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Looking back at wn St. Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively into the turkey season, but it’s always crabcakes season around here. We’ve had a couple of Maryland crabcake doorstops. Already this week and we’re making more before before the holidays get your Talk brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have a handful, just a handful, these ravens scratch offs. At some point, they’re going to give me the scented tickets, and I gotta get up Ross to do that. But remember the crabcake tour. We’re going to be at Pappas and Parkville for the very first time on next Tuesday before Thanksgiving. That’s before Black Friday, Turkey Thursday, get together the night before Thanksgiving Wednesday. It’s Tuesday afternoon. We’ll be a Pappas of Parkville and then we move to Coco’s on the 29th on the 38th. We’re going to be at the BMA at gertrudes I’m going to be having a delicious vegan crack again a regular crab cake with John shields. And then on the first word Hollywood casino in Perryville. The fifth state fair the 15th foreign daughter the 29th of December our final appearance of fade these were there last Friday. This guy here brings us News brings a scratch offs. Sometimes we have some comedy. And before we start, I will say this last week, I was terrible on my picks John Martin of the Maryland lottery, but I did pick Cleveland. So not Oh, you did not. Did you sneak that in? What did you Sorry,
John Martin 01:20
I’ve got a little problem with my video feed here. I lost my monitor can you see okay, home
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:26
it without a logo? I don’t know what is it? What is your home might not have a logo? It’s is it orange? If you’re the browns?
John Martin 01:32
Oh, man, so many questions like this. I wish I could I could channel Lee Corso, you know and get one of those big mascot heads.
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:41
Is this where I hold on my ravens logo? Is that where I do that?
John Martin 01:45
I don’t care. I don’t care. Yes, thank goodness, you at least had some solace, some personal gain out of it. Nestor.
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:56
I know, I know why you wanted to begin the segment so quickly today. You just wanted to jump up and down. I mean, when I saw horrible 25 and six against the Browns lifetime, I’m thinking yeah, and you know, I remember the six to you know what I mean? For the most part, you remember losing to the brands, I remember those trips, you know, in the RTA Data Center City, tower city there and make these right i Very nice, I think at the Christmas store and all that. But you don’t lose much. And when you win, please, I’m a raving guy, but crow crow for a while you wish because you’re playing the Steelers this week. Right? So
John Martin 02:28
first off, it’s 25 and seven. Now, for those of you keeping score, and we do so the record would be now 25 and seven. And yes, we play Sunday, but you guys may be a little busy before we get to Sunday, which would add some heightened import to the Sunday matchup. Well, this
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:46
conversations happening before Thursday night football, just the weird week we played on Thursday night. Everything’s a little weird after all of that Luke and I will be here on Friday with full coverage, as always, but I would say the one thing that I’m going to the casino in a couple of weeks, and I was out in Vegas, the sports wagering side of this from where we are from where you sit. He’s the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery. These numbers come in every month. And listen, I’m talking a lot of stadium right now I’m talking to Maryland stadium authority. I’m talking about where money is gonna go. And all of this part of this pool of money is what generates money for sports, and which generates a lot of different things economically for downtown that I sat and talked to Matt Campbell on our Maryland crabcake tour, who runs the convention center about we talked a lot about David Bramble and inner harmony and all of this is interconnected. But the sports wagering piece was a piece of money that quite frankly, and I always say this about the bookmaker salads that we have around town. It never came back to the community in that way. And you, you have a little chuckle about it. But it all feels on the up and up now. And here we are. But I remember two years ago, you come in on trying to at least get this done. So where people are wagering, and hopefully responsibly, we’ll talk about all of that. But these are big numbers, John, I mean, this was something that New Jersey was drinking, and certainly Nevada was drinking and forever. But these are big, big numbers. And I’ve talked about this for 32 years, right? I’ve been on the air since 91. It was slot machines, race tracks, are we going to have casino I mean, I’ve been through every iteration of this but this is generating a lot of money that staying here in the community and and no doubt doing good things to me. It’s going to the state and we’re gonna talk to West’s about that later, and the legislature and everybody but then the sports wagering part of this is generating money. Correct.
John Martin 04:30
We are coming up on the first anniversary of mobile sports wagering here in the state of Maryland that would you may recall was Wednesday before Thanksgiving last year. So we are very quickly upon that now and for the month of October, we have reported the largest revenue in the history of sports wagering brief history of sports wagering, we had over $5.8 million of contribution to the state in the month of October, huge month. Full disclosure, everyone in the country had a huge month because again, so much of the sports wagering is driven by the sports calendar. You had the playoff baseball playoffs and World Series in the beginning of October, you had five NFL weekends in the month of October, you had a lot of things starting up with hockey and college basketball and pro basketball. And you add all that in. And we’re happy to report not only that $5.8 million to the state, which was the largest contribution so far, but you know, just overall, the handle was the second largest handle meaning the money bet, second only to December of last year 2022. And yes, we are talking huge numbers and the primary beneficiary on sports wagering is Maryland education, specifically the blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund. So that is earmarked specifically for that purpose. And you look at the one that’s traditionally
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:54
called Kerwin, correct. Exactly. All right. And
John Martin 05:58
you look at the months to come November, December, January, and it can only continue and may even get a little better hard to imagine. We go back to four NFL Sundays though in November so you may see a little air out of the balloon. But we anticipate very strong numbers November December, January up to including Superbowl weekend in February. John Martin is
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:20
here he is Executive Director of the Maryland lottery ribs me about browns, ravens things and we can all agree we don’t like the Bengals or the Steelers this week. The one thing about the money and and I have after it because a lot of executive people would be the ones may be more inclined to listen to this or watch this online. But when you have the five weekend, it’s like a three payroll month. It’s like, oh, wow, that’s a little different. You know, then the 28 days of February or whatever, but the promo money that we talked about last year, where every ad was giving you $200 Whatever it was to make a bet to get involved a lot of that there were some things about it. And you can speak more legally to it than I can from a year ago about what the state was expecting. And how, you know, when you came on last year, and you’re you saw sold in the front, you’re like, hey, the numbers aren’t gonna be as big in the beginning. Because we’re coming online and this promotional money is going to get eaten up mainly last season, maybe a little bit this season with with new gaming licenses coming on. And you and I talked to arc for last few years. But the promo money is that now out of it is this more all what we’re going to see moving forward, what we saw in October from the state’s contribution
John Martin 07:31
to the initial regulations allowed sports book operators 12 months, basically one full year after they began. So they began last November, they had all of last year, basically, to to have the promo money. So now we’re coming up on the end of this year, and 23 of that promo money allowance, if you will, will, will kind of level off, which is why you’re seeing some of these numbers will start to come down at least on the promo spend. And hopefully what will remain will be a consistent and responsible play on the on the wagering side. But yes, after calendar 23. When we go into the to January 24, we’ll have a more level playing field on what are further sports books are allowed to spend in promotional play. Because that will be a percentage of their net win over the last several years. So yeah, it’ll kind of normalize. So we saw a lot of commercials last year, at this time, we saw a lot of promo dollars, you know, 10s of millions of dollars being spent in November and December last year to get the market shares. And you’re seeing a much much more calm some people may not believe so. But it’s it’s it’s true. A much less spending on promotional media spend doesn’t mean the offers still aren’t available. You still get bombarded maybe on on your mobile device, but but a lot of that has softened up considerably.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:59
Well, you know, the one thing you and I talk almost every week, sometimes two, three times a month, but we’ve we’ve discussed all of this and you’re really good at sort of pre selling what the realities are going to be. So you’re not over promising the people you answer to or the public and coming in on all this a year into this from your own seat. And I know we talked a little bit about this in August when we sat together and Mako, but just how has it gone? I mean, you’re we’re a year into this now, is this number 5.8? Is that sort of where you maybe thought it would be a year ago or oh my god a lot bigger or, you know, maybe we thought a little bit things would work out a little differently. I think you’ve been if anything really good at being predictive about what you’re expecting and not over promising and under delivering or the other way around. Just trying to be realistic in what was going to happen. You told me all this was going to grow isn’t where you expected it. We expected
John Martin 09:53
the first year, once fully operational, and I would say we’re fully operational of 25 to three $30 million contribution annually to the state and again, is as we’ve talked before, because of the way the sports calendar ebbs and flows, it’s not a straight line each month, certainly in the spring and summer months, you know, it’s below that, that average and now it’s it’s above that. But at this rate, and we’re nearly four months in now, through October, four months of the of the fiscal year, we’re at 14 Point 9 million, nearly $15 million. I’d be careful not to multiply that times three, and figure we’ll be at 45 million at the end of the year. So no, again, it’s not a straight line projection. But we are probably a little bit ahead of the curve, we’ll probably do better than what was certainly a little better than 30 million. How much better I don’t know how far will the Ravens go in the playoffs? You know, a lot of things will be to be determined but but I think a comfortably we can say that that 25 to 30. We’ve We’ve checked that off, we’ve met our our target, we will exceed that this year. We’re a little over 25 million last year will be probably a little north of 30 million probably been, you know 30 to $33 million range, but it’s still a little too little too soon to tell. But but all trends point in a positive direction.
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:09
All right, that’s sports wagering, please please do it responsibly. Listen to everything Kurt Warner is telling you on TV there. And you know, make sure you know your limits set your limits, have fun with it sounds like a lot of people are having fun with it. A lot of people in my world are having fun with it, except when the referees or the Ravens lose or you know, there’s a bad beat. I’ll get to all of that with our friends at Hollywood casino this week with my picks which we make every week you can check them out of Baltimore positive John Martin joins us he’s executive director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming we have the crabcake tour out it’s all we always have these Raven scratch offs anyway, but we’re about to switch over and get seasonal here. Dare I say thanks winning is underway you taught us about that last week as well as sent it never to be called anything else other than sent it tickets here I’m gonna get some gingerbread some peppermint around here make make studio smell good when I hold them up here. But but it is something that there are so many other things go on a big threes pick fours I was at ROFO the other day so I’m both getting up around a quarter of a billion dollars right both of the jackpots so a lot of things going on right now a lot of people here locally winning to
John Martin 12:13
jackpot you right are in both north of a quarter billion dollars as we speak right now megamillions at 267 million Powerball at 255. So you know hopefully and when we like it when they inch up little by little week to week we’ll see how long it’s gonna ride before one of them eventually gets gets one but yeah, it’s a lot of fun at this point on on not only the the Mega Millions and Powerball games, but the scratch offs, especially for the holidays, people starting to make their holiday purchases. Thanks for acknowledging the thanks winning promotion where any draw game ticket purchase between now and November 26. is eligible. You could win a instant cash voucher of $2 or $5. Or a free $1. Fast play Candy Cane. unscented.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:04
That’s all good. Yeah, it’s
John Martin 13:06
not not easy to do on the fast buy tickets a lot, a lot easier to do on the on the scratch off tickets, and people are winning and people are winning all over the state. I love this story. The story is about a veteran. Let me bring it up here. Let me find him. Where did he go? Where did he go? I had him here.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:24
He still got his money. He’s happy I’m sure Oh, here he is here. He
John Martin 13:28
is a a retired postal worker, also a veteran two days before Veterans Day, so he had something to be proud of. And anyway, won over $100,000 on racetracks. And for those people don’t know racetracks a simulated horse racing game. It’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:45
not a simulation. It’s not I’m not gonna let you do that. When I’m in Costas and I was the other day doing the crabcake tour, and I look up, and those horses are running. I don’t like I’ve seen all the x the video games for football. And it looks sort of realistic. But it doesn’t look really realistic. The racing thing looks like it’s the fifth race from AquaDuck. It really does. I mean, it has a and I’ve seen people having real fun with it. It cost us for sure. They
John Martin 14:13
have fun wherever they are playing responsibly. Hopefully they’re they’re having even more fun. But this gentleman from Washington County, big racetracks fan. His horses came up, he had the superfecta wager, which allowed him to win again over $100,000.02 days before Veterans Day, a proud veteran and retired postal worker. Thank you for your service. And by the way, here’s your check for $100,000
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:38
Hey, by the way, we only see thank you for your service to military folks. We say this to veterans and how about postal workers? You know what I mean? Like, they print my mail every day. I’m very appreciative to my mailman. You know, you get mail. Yeah, you know, how else am I gonna get the belt buckles I order online.
John Martin 14:57
Oh, there you go. Yeah, You know, no one else we should be proud of nurses, nurses, and we had a nurse in Howard County. Also one when we’re just giving away $100,000. That seems to be it. She won a top prize on our $100,000 cash scratch off. Very, very pleased to find out that she was a winner of $100,000. And as she said, I could never have imagined. Well, you’re imagining is over. It’s real. Many
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:30
times I’ve told the story this week, because I’ve done the crab cake tour, and I’ve given away almost all Roz, I need some sentence. I when I give these out to people, and there was some older folks in cost this that were in one was a veteran, he had his hat. He was in the Marines. He had his hat. He was having a crab cake. So he came over and he thanked me. And I said, Did you win, he’s like, doesn’t matter if I won, you did something nice. You gave me a chance to win. It’s fun. So it’s very nice. But I said to this couple of scratch offs and use your app, you get a second chance. This couple actually wants to dollars true story they want to box, but I showed that to them. And I said, you know, you can win $20,000 And I said Now listen, if it says under their CMD lottery that means so this woman wins $100,000 And she has to think like C and D lottery and then they have to come you sure you’re not Santa Claus? John Martin.
John Martin 16:25
Well, there are times when I feel like it. But there are other times when I feel like one of the Elves just running around. Hey, speaking of elves elves, they talk to you about the Cleveland Browns yet
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:36
they looked at it looks like they look I looks like the Keebler elf right? Is that what you’re saying? The guy at the 50 yard line? Maybe
John Martin 16:41
that’s what it maybe that’s my Lee Corso helmet. Maybe that’s what I put. Put on this big elf head. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:49
a lot of money over there. John Martin’s here, the executive director. Well, thanks, Mary. Like, Sean. Oh, that these Raven scratches, he’s still we still have a drawing for like tickets for life. We were still in play here as well. We have I mean, we’re all down on the Ravens because they lose to the Browns around here. Hey, man, we’re still first place was hanging out hanging out a wall. You know,
John Martin 17:08
last week we had another drawing and it’s a second chance drawing some people and go to MD lottery.com to check out what prizes are still available last week. And I’m going to apologize for the name already here. I’m gonna mispronounce it, I’m sure and Bay er Su from Germantown, one season tickets finalist position for 20 years. We are going to have six finalists in February to be one of those lucky finalists finalists will be selected. And Ambay. Yes, who is now one of those finalists. We had people winning season tickets for next year. Janice Barnes from Hagerstown, Charlene Wilson from Aberdeen, so people all over the state are winning. Second Chance prizes, even if they don’t want a cash prize on their first, first go round. And we have additional drawings to come. And you can again go to MD lottery.com. We’ll have drawings in December, actually two drawings one, December 11. And the next one on January 2. So that will be the the final drawing and again, at that point, we’ll have six finalists will have announced the day. But typically we like to wait till after the Superbowl. But we’ll see how that plays out before for one lucky winner have 20 years of season tickets. So yes, plenty of experiential prices still to go in the Ravens ticket. I’m glad
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:29
I brought that up because I was given those way the other day. And I think to myself as somebody in Costas or next week at Pappus, apartment wins $20,000. But I’m still waiting for my next $100 winner and I get 50s or hundreds people get really crazy when they went to they let me know. And they laugh and say thank you, but I’m like, hey, you know, I just give them out. I think they’re all lucky to me. So I try I try my best with that. I would say the last thing on the Ravens that I need to point out that if you win tickets for life, this fellow we had a little trouble pronouncing his name from out in Germantown. I would say that, historically, the Ravens win most of the time when you have season tickets for life against the browns, historically, this is my chance to point that out, John, historically,
John Martin 19:09
I will I will counter that by pointing out that Saturday evening, late that night 10:51pm. Our daughter blessed us with our third grandchild. Oh yes. And he came into the worlds Saturday night. So his record talked about Harbaugh’s record at 25 and seven now. His record is now one and oh
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:33
it was a tough week around here. I hope it doesn’t get any tougher. By the time you’re hearing John Martin and I the Ravens may have beaten the Bengals they may have lost at the Bengals. But either way they got some time off. Luke will be out at the castle doing his thing. And we are going to be taking the Maryland crabcake tour on the road. And I’m going to have some scented tickets. Hopefully soon. I have a handful of ravens scratch offs to give away we’re going to be Papist Parkville. this coming Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then we hit the ground running Coco’s on the 29th we’re going to be gertrudes at the beach. Ma on the 30th with Dan Rodricks, promoting his play, as well as on the first of December were taken to the Hollywood casino and the newly renamed ESPN Sports book up there as well. Jonathan, I cover I should say all the bases that I that I hit all the yards that I did I score from the red zone. I don’t know my my cliche here. Did I hit a three pointer. Have we hit all the high notes of the Maryland lottery this week?
John Martin 20:22
Yes, we have. Yes, we have. And again, if I’ve missed any, please, MD lottery.com. People can check out products promotions, winners information, and look forward to do this again,
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:34
hopefully next week. Thanks winning and we are thankful for our partnership with our friends at the marijuana reconstruction with our friends and window nation. Sometimes they get to wear the fun hat. I did that down to families last week and some great conversations in the crabcakes. You mentioned education and the blueprint for education. I had Paul Satterfield on at Costas, we had just a wonderful conversation about teaching. He’s the principal at Dundalk high school. I had my old pal from high school standard Blonsky in town, his father a 30 year science and chemistry teacher at Dundalk High School, the old high school versus the new high school. So we definitely did some some great education here this week as well. And I had a fallout on the crabcake tour. On Tuesday, I had a guest cancel on me last minute no problem had a family issue. And the sit in was unbelievable as Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Katie and Dominic came over John they’re trying to talk me into running for visionary of the year. They don’t do Man and Woman of the Year anymore. They do visionary. Yeah, I said, I met Alice Cooper a couple of weeks ago I’m not worthy. But but a great great conversation about my wife and her life been saved on the bone marrow registry and the work that I got their cards right here beating cancer is in our blood, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. So we’ve had a great time with them this week, as well. I am Nestor VRW. I’m sorry, yes, I
John Martin 21:47
was gonna say visionary the year that it’s going to elevate this whole game, isn’t it?
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:52
I spent 42 minutes at cost is shooting this whole concept down that I could potentially run for visionary the year. Don’t ask me on and I told them when I left. I said, Look, if people start egging me on, I’m going to have to do this. And now that I’ve gone public with me, so I said, if nothing else, we’re going to do good work for leukemia. I just don’t I don’t know that I’m comfortable with being a visionary John, I don’t know that I’m comfortable with
John Martin 22:15
this. Master. Sometimes it’s it’s not ours to decide. The People Speak.
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:19
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man I am Nestor. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore and we never well, we stopped talking about the Browns beating the Ravens right here right now. It’s week 10. Stay with us on Baltimore positive
