As the Home Run Riches hits it deep with Orioles baseball this week, John Martin of The Maryland Lottery has big news on bigger jackpots and a new twist on an enduring Mega game.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland Lottery’s upcoming events, including the Maryland crab cake tour and the kickoff of Home Run Riches in Toronto. John Martin, Executive Director of the Maryland Lottery, highlights recent lottery history, noting a significant drop from five $5 billion jackpots last fiscal year to one this year. Martin explains changes to Mega Millions, including a $5 ticket price, a starting jackpot of $55 million, and a built-in multiplier. He also discusses responsible gambling practices and recent lottery winners, emphasizing the importance of setting budgets and playing legally.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Lottery, jackpots, home run riches, scratch offs, baseball season, Mega Millions, Powerball, gaming awareness, responsible gambling, budget setting, social betting, legal betting, prize winnings, lottery tickets, sports wagering.
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. Always encouraging you make sure you set a spot on your radio dial if you’re driving around the beltway anywhere here in Baltimore. Am 1570 we appreciate that we are taking the Maryland crab cake tour out on the road. I have confirmed no less than one half dozen dates into April and into May, starting things off at Pizza Johns and ESS. I will have the match eight ball scratch offs. I’m running low. Ross. Send help. Send monopoly. We need help. I got one more left. And then we will be in Toronto, Canada next week for the kickoff of home run riches with the Maryland lottery, as well as the opening day kickoff with with Luke Jones, and then we’re back on the second of April at fade Lee’s in Lexington market, and that will be real baseball second home game for the Orioles taking on the Red Sox. I’ve got some really cool guests coming by that day. No one as good as Joe Castiglione, who once partnered with my next guest, who has moved his way up the charts from intern to channel three in Cleveland television back in 19, all the way to being the executive director of all things Maryland, lottery and gaming. Let’s not forget the gaming part. He and his group provide these fantastic scratch offs that we provide for for pleasure. And we talk a little bit about awareness this month and big things. But my wife is where John Martin that there aren’t billions like Carl Sagan, but there’s hundreds of millions of dollars. We get Jack bots, jackpots. This week, we got home run riches and all that. But it’s got a rarefied air. Both of these are getting up on four or 500 million. That’s, you know, that will get me to wallea, as I like to say.
John Martin 01:38
It will keep people interested. And I don’t think anybody had the bingo card for today’s show. Had Joe Castiglione. I don’t think that anyone
Nestor Aparicio 01:46
had I think he was a guest on my show at one point. So that makes it even I would think, feel it. Yes, I would think so. Somewhere back here I have a tape. And, I mean, a tape, I mean, oh yeah, come on. Now, not that old, although there is a machine at the radio station that I found that was real to real when I got here from the 50s, but nah, but it’s baseball season. I brought up a great baseball name. We got home run. We got all sorts of things, but she’s react with this jackpot thing.
John Martin 02:12
8You know what? We we are starved for a jackpot. And again, just to give you a little bit of lottery recent history, not that anyone is is too concerned about my life. It’s not about me Nestor. It’s about the fans. You know that. But this, this year, this fiscal year, in our fiscal year, July, 1 to June, 30. So fiscal 24 last year, we had five. Count them, $5 billion plus jackpots. This year, fiscal 25,
Nestor Aparicio 02:44
one, okay, so there’s
John Martin 02:46
been a upheaval. There’s been a disturbance in the Force. And so when we get to things like hundreds of millions of dollars, people kind of remember, yeah, I remember that, gee, will it get to a billion again? Well, we have fingers, toes and eyes crossed, that it will. Because right now, both are in those nice, comfortable, significant triple digits. You know, we’re looking at the folks on the Mega million side as we speak. And you know, over $324 million Powerball, over $416 million and, yeah, that’ll get you a nice little getaway weekend somewhere. I’m sure I
Nestor Aparicio 03:20
wouldn’t be greedy. I would just, I’d be fine with the 300 now, Mega Millions. We’re changing some things about this that will explain the math of it all, because it is very typical. My wife is a player. When it gets to be big numbers, she’ll put her 20 bucks up and have a little bit of fun with it, and hoping to match couple numbers get a few bucks back, even. But the Mega Millions, when you hit it, when it gets hit, if it gets hit tonight for 470, $1 million it goes back down to, like 20 million. It goes to, like a small number. And then my wife comes up and she sees it at Royal farms or wherever she’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, that’s, that’s when she moves to scratch off. She moves to a different game, um, trying to get the jackpots up to that, that miracle three digits, you know, where it looks like it’s at least under $1 million Mega Millions, has worked with the math on this, and I know they’re going to be changing the game
8John Martin 04:09
right the the game mechanics itself will not change a lot of things that are on the periphery. It’s still the game that the players know and love. It’ll still be drawn twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. The starting jackpot when it is one, will now reset at 55 zero, $50 million there will be a little tweaking of the math behind the scenes so that the grass the jackpots grow faster. There are bigger average jackpots throughout the year. There are better overall odds to win any prize, any cash prize, and no break even prices, which means you’re guaranteed to win at least twice the price, the cost of pay the price of your ticket, and all of those benefits come with an added price ticket to it. It’s now a $5 gain. But to get all those benefits. Of higher starting jackpot, bigger average jackpots, faster growing a built in multiplier, which means on every draw today, if someone wants to multiply their winnings, they have to pay an additional dollar to get that. It will be embedded in the $5 price, and those multipliers will be unique on each game you purchase. So if you bought a ticket, and some people do, they’d like to spend and get three or four plays, if you will, when they go in there, each one will have a discrete multiplier from two times to 10 times that will multiply your winning all the way up to but not include the ultimate jackpot. So we expect lots of great things to happen that kicks off the minute after the current game on Friday. I believe that is one moment, please. April 4, okay, right after that? Okay, alright, right. So April 5, you’ll start playing for the new game, and that will kick off on April 8. So all retailers are being educated on it, so you can stop by and talk to them about it. They’ll give you more detail. Go to MD lottery.com, in the weeks ahead, we’ll probably have a big Tada moment sometime in the middle of next week. So Stay, stay with the game. As it is now, jackpots continue to grow, and in the potential event that this current jackpot is not one that 345, 100 million, whatever is at the time, we’ll just roll over and we’ll pick it up then with the new game,
Nestor Aparicio 06:30
and it’ll go faster because you’re paying $5 tickets. John Martin is your Executive Director of the Maryland lottery. I don’t want to let this go, because I’ve been called Slow. Sometimes I’m a little slower on a concept all that gobbledy cook you just gave me, which you weren’t reading, which is amazing, like, you know, this stuff. But the thing I’m getting out of it is there’s no more multiplier. It’s built in. Is that correct? There
John Martin 06:50
is no more additional spend for a multiplier. It is now inherently built in correct. Okay,
Nestor Aparicio 06:54
that’s what I took out of it. And at least that’s my little See, I do pay attention. I don’t pay for much, but I pay attention. John Martin, what’s
John Martin 07:00
your which I’m sorry to talk over you there, but just just to tie that up to the little bow, that means for your $5 spend, with a built in multiplier of at least two times that, if you win, just on the Mega Ball, you’ll get $10 okay,
Nestor Aparicio 07:16
so five becomes 10. There’s no $5 winner. There’s only a $10 winner I got you. Okay, um, home run riches. Let’s talk about this, because it’s baseball season and you’re a baseball guy. I’m a baseball guy. We have a lot of fun as part of what we do around here, just promoting the lottery, talking about your events, that we have some baseball Mojo about us. I’m just gonna take your executive director hat, put your guardians add on, or whatever, right? There’s a hat.
John Martin 07:40
There’s an executive director hat.
Nestor Aparicio 07:41
No, there are several guardians hats. I’ve seen them all. They have, you know, they have different models that I don’t know if you saw that Texas Rangers hat, but it didn’t go so well, especially in Latin America a couple weeks ago. I know what that means. So, you know, I good Venezuela parents for the season. Anybody who is a baseball fan and you are one and I am one, and you go back to sudden Sam and Louis T on COVID, and I go back, I had Doug the senses on for an hour this week, and we talked about the 79 home run, which is the beginning of Orio magic. I was at the game that night. So I the thing about baseball this time of year is that it really does spring eternal, right? Like, I mean, for anybody who loves baseball, gets to be our age, especially if your team is never won the World Series. I’m not picking on you, or hasn’t won the World Series in 42 years. There is a point where this is fun. And I think for all of us who love baseball, we wait for it year long, you know, year long. Luke and I are so gassed up, we’re driving to Canada to do it next week, but it’s baseball season, and the lottery provides even more fun, I think, if you’re an Orioles fan on a day by day basis, but for guys like you, we didn’t need the lottery back in the day to collect the baseball cards, because we love baseball.
John Martin 08:49
We invite everyone at this time of year to visit our website and go to MD lottery.com and learn about home run riches walk off winnings last year’s home run riches, bases loaded, was a very popular $5 fast play. Scratch off ticket. You know what? That thing is still out there. So when you go to the your retailer and and want to purchase your home run riches, they still have an old rolling jackpot from last year that’s still out there that hopefully will be one soon. And then we’ll concentrate on on the current walk off winnings game. It is a little different game. And for people who were familiar with fast play, you know, it’s kind of a an instant win, but it’s printed at the the Self Service vending or the the Lottery Terminal. It’s not a schmutz driven scratch off thing that gets messy all over your fingers,
Nestor Aparicio 09:40
and it’s not a sniffer. Even though I’m not, we’re not going to talk at the holiday. No, it
John Martin 09:44
is not scented. It’s not so pine tar.
Nestor Aparicio 09:47
Hey, Delaware Valley mud. I know what it smells like because I’ve been around the outliers back in the day. Alright, we might wrote that on there. Get me products on the line. Someone. Get me products. Baseball. Smell like, if it had a smell, I don’t know, because grass,
John Martin 10:04
well, it’ll first grass. That’d be nice. That’d be very nice. Okay, that’s see now you got me thinking dugout
Nestor Aparicio 10:09
smelled like sunflower seeds when I was a kid, if that means anything, because they always, I’m saying we’re not,
8John Martin 10:15
we’re not going any further into the locker room, because there’s some smells that we don’t want. I’m just coffee. There
Nestor Aparicio 10:20
was always a lot of coffee and leftover, leftover,
John Martin 10:25
right? You’re making all of
Nestor Aparicio 10:27
my days back in the day when I covered baseball, but,
John Martin 10:29
but getting us back on track, if you go to MD library comma, check out home run riches, you’ll find out how to be the contestant of the game. Our first drawing, if you will, will be next week, and we will draw once a month for the next 30 days. And each contestant of The game will have a winner selected. You get $500 for that honor. And then during that game, when she has your name attached to it, and we had put all the names out there so you’ll be able to find where you are and what is your game. And then you sit there, and you listen, you watch, you attend whichever your your preference is. And then every pitch could be a $500 pitch, because we will pay you $500 for every Orioles home run. Should the bags be juiced loaded, whatever a Grand Slam pays $5,000 and I can’t imagine being the contestant of The Game sitting there and watching it play out in real time, what the emotion must be, but we had a handful of winners last year. So
Nestor Aparicio 11:24
I’m going to be in Toronto next Thursday for the opener, and on Friday, I will not be watching Masson, so I won’t really know who the contestant is, but I can go to MD lottery.com and find out that contestant, and I’m going to tell you, right it’s my prediction for you before the season begins. Ryan mount Castle is going to cost you money. John Martin, Executive Director lottery, because he’s gonna hit some bombs in April. I have a feeling moving this fence in a little bit, we get the home games, beginning with the Red Sox. Next Monday, there’s gonna be a lot of home runs. This year, this team’s gonna hit the ball. I think the left field wall moving in. I think how much money did we give away last year? We’re gonna give way more money this year. That’s my prediction. Is you better, we better figure this lottery thing out, because we’re gonna have to pay more money this year, because I think you’re gonna hit more home runs.
John Martin 12:06
You know what? That’s a great question, and I don’t have it, you know, next week they were
8Nestor Aparicio 12:10
like, six grand slams or something. We need more, like six or seven grand slams, more grand slams, more home runs. Next year is what we need.
John Martin 12:18
Yeah, no, it’s pretty it was a, you know, and that’s the fun part of it. Yeah, each each year in the game, it’s not just like you won a ticket or you want a drawing. You are physically, mentally, emotionally, financially,
Nestor Aparicio 12:31
win an unlimited amount of money, really, because there could be two grand slams in a game. There could be three home runs. Well, I just hope they take you to the cleaners, because the Orioles need to hit some
John Martin 12:40
home runs. You know? What? I need to take some suits to the cleaners. That That wouldn’t be a bad idea. I gotta get
Nestor Aparicio 12:45
new hangers. John Martin is here. He’s the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery. They got lots of things going on at an empty lottery. We’re doing the crab cake tour. When I give away these tickets, people ask me, like scanning them and doing just download the app, and the app allows you to take any of these scratch offs and easily find out if you’re a winner, if they’re non winning, you enter in the second chances. You do all of these things. John, I know you have some winner stories. I want to give you the floor here, because we’ve done baseball, we’ve done all the changes. We got these huge jackpots. This is a big thing, but people really do win. And they come and they visit you every day, and they get to wear fun things. They get big checks. And there’s nothing like winning in the springtime. I think being a big winner, well, I
John Martin 13:27
think people will win any day of the year. It just spring just happens to be a bonus part of that. But you’re right. Go to MD lottery.com to get winter stories. Here’s a couple I picked out for you. One will help us play what is now going to be a staple of these shows where in the world is so be ready for that. Get to get my Google map out. Get your Rand McNally, or whatever you Google Map, alright, for you kids out there. But here’s a fun story, and it’s an Upper Marlboro couple, so we don’t need to find that on the map. I think that’s that’s pretty well spoken for
Nestor Aparicio 13:55
I paid to the farm show down there. Yes, we have a $30 ticket called the $100,000
John Martin 13:59
cash with $1 sign where the S should be. So we get a little artsy on that. And the top prize is $100,000 for a $30 ticket. And that’s simply not the top prize. It’s much. It’s typically a larger amount. But we like to bring the price amount out and give them more. We load the prizes, as we say in lottery land here. So we have 60 top prizes and one lucky couple who enjoy playing lottery tickets, kind of as a weekly diversion. He buys them, she buys them, whatever they sit down at one time and kind of scratch, and they had some nominal winnings. We don’t talk about nominal winnings here do we Lester? We go right above nominal. Well, if
Nestor Aparicio 14:42
that to come and visit you, if it says CMD lottery, they’ve won something. Yeah.
John Martin 14:48
So it was a she was buying the tickets this time. I don’t know who actually scratched it, but they realized they won. And then, as most people do, they look at each other, and they go right to their app, their MD lottery app, and they. Scan it there to make sure. Well, they scanned it multiple times on both phones, his and hers, and every time he came up, winner, winner, winner, winner. So hold
Nestor Aparicio 15:12
on, that’s even better. I should do that when I scan these out at Coco’s next month, somebody wins. Scan it again, scan it again. It feels like you win again and again, right? Well, I don’t know.
John Martin 15:21
I think they were just, they were just disbelieving, you know, gee, that can’t be, right? You tried on your phone. No, okay, yeah, it said, same thing. You tried again. But I would have loved a little back and forth there, but it doesn’t
Nestor Aparicio 15:32
work the other way when you don’t win, yeah, exactly. That’s
John Martin 15:36
not a good thing. So here’s, here’s the where in the world, you ready? All right, so we had another lucky winner again. MD, lottery.com. To get all the details a montgomery county, I’ll give you a t so you can start to hone in montgomery county. Woman won $50,000 Powerball, which typically means she had four of the five drawn, plus the Powerball number. But she won it months ago, back in in October. And now it comes forward, you have 182 days from when the drawing happens to actually claim your prize. And a lot of people like to take that time. The larger the prize, the more they want to make sure their affairs are in order. They’ve got the the financial advice they need. There’s no rush. It’s not going anywhere. You’ve got the tickets. Sign it, secure it, bring it here, and then, and then, then the fun starts. So she kept looking at the numbers and again, making sure they were correct, and they were, and came in. Here she is from burtonsville, burtonsville, burtonsville. Burtonsville
Nestor Aparicio 16:34
is in montgomery county. Already told me that, but I told signs about burtonsville. I knew there was a burtonsville,
John Martin 16:41
so that’s it. You’re not even I’m always
Nestor Aparicio 16:44
turned on when there’s places I don’t I know there’s a Madonna, I know there’s a Texas I’m always trying to find some place that I don’t know about. Well,
John Martin 16:51
8that’s a whole nother story right here. That’s, that’s, I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 16:55
I’ve been everywhere. Man, I don’t think I’ve been. Let me see if I’ve actually been to burtonsville. I know I’ve seen the sign for Burton. You know it looks, it looks my,
John Martin 17:03
in my little crude research, it looks like a very nice little Burb in between, kind of equidistant, but in between a lot of things there. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
all 198 and 29 I’ve been through Burtons, Phil, my wife, this Verizon’s office is in Burton. That’s why I know where that is. Okay, it’s right on 29 south of Merriweather Post. Okay, good. I’m good. I know where we are now. Okay, all right. Nice people there,
John Martin 17:28
yes, and winners and lottery winners are there. So yeah, that’s that’s a lot of fun. And again, more and more stories about people who win Second Chance prizes, who win, scratch off tickets, who win, draw game tickets, all of that and more at MD lottery.com.
Nestor Aparicio 17:45
The more you scan it, the more you feel like you won, even though you won the same prize, and it’s a big prize. John Martin is here Gambling Awareness. We’ve done that I a couple of weeks ago. Just want to give you a little bit of oxygen on that, because baseball’s ramping up. And I don’t know if you know this, and I haven’t mentioned this, they’re playing basketball this weekend, Terps, right? I had Walt Williams on the show. We did an hour this week talking about the Terps and talking about the N i L and the portal, which I’m an old guy, John, I’m trying to understand the portal. Yeah, I do know this. We got wall to wall basketball, men’s and women’s here, and there’s, I don’t want to bring up Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, but we all remember that episode of bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet. We want to make sure people don’t have that going on, because there haven’t been a lot of games since the Super Bowl. For some folks, there’s names every day. We just want people to this is still a new thing. We’re two, two and a half years into being able to bet, bet bet all the time. And there’s a point where you, as the executive director and everyone involved, saying, Come on, take take this thing back. This is supposed to be for fun. Let’s make sure we’re not wrecking anybody or wrecking your experience. And if it’s not fun for you’re probably doing it wrong.
John Martin 18:53
My good friends at the American gaming Association, the AGA right down the road there in the District of Columbia remind all of us that while it’s fun this year as it is every year, at this time in March, the combined expected spend handle on both men’s and women’s basketball over $3 billion bet through legal means probably an equal amount bet illegally and not being tracked. That’s up from last year. Each year it’s up from the year before. So what we try to do, and the AGA does a great job of it, is just remind people to play responsible. Let’s take a little further. What does that mean? Because you talk to somebody, they’re gonna say, Sure, I play responsibly. Well, do they really? I don’t know. I don’t know. So there are five tenants, if you will, to help people define and strategize and how they go, go about their their their sports wagering day. First off, set a budget, determine how much you’re willing to invest. Best in it at that point in time, and then stick to it. You know, back in the day, when I used to do this, before going to the becoming the lottery director that I am, I would put that money in my right pocket, and that was it. When it was done, it was done. If it added to it, great. I didn’t go to the ATM. I didn’t ask anybody, my wife or anybody else that was it. So set a limit, set a budget, and stick to it. Secondly, keep it social. It’s always better to enjoy the games with friends as opposed to a singular activity. And that goes for a lot of things, and you can make the same thing. You’re going to notice patterns here with other addictive behaviors. So you want to be careful and guarded on that. Know the odds. You know, particularly with parlay betting, it’s sports wagering. Know the odds of what it is that you that you’re making the wager on, and that goes from traditional lottery games, and we publish the odds on each and every lottery game out there, but when you’re doing sports wagering, understand the difference between a a money line and over under a three leg parlay, whatever. Just make sure you’re aware and educated. Number four play legally. Go to the regulated environments, and in Maryland, that’s very obvious. You go to our website, we’ll list the locations. Clearly, it’s all of the casino properties. There are a number of mobile betting platforms. More and more in this industry, we’re seeing other entrants come in and they are not regulated. And we’ll talk that’s probably a show in and of itself. Yeah, I was
Nestor Aparicio 21:29
just gonna say to folks, I mean, the number one thing about this and me being a spokesperson, an advocate, a sponsor, we do this is like the lack of safety in Dundalk in 1985 to be making bets with bookies and people. And you know, off the grid, there is a safety and a confidence level that the government has set up in doing this, which I talked about for 25 years, or 30 years before it ever happened that now that it’s here, the thing that I keep thinking about of the people that I knew who used to gamble with Louis the bookmaker that now do it legally, it this is a much, much better environment, psychologically all the way around, for those who do choose to play and be involved in sports wagering and trying to win money and having some fun with it. This is just a better way than the way it used to be. And, and I’ll say that just for the blueprint for where the money goes and all of that, but just the notion that street crime, and I, and I can’t emphasize that enough, when people bring it up to me, I say, Look, you know, this is a good thing that the government got into this because it’s regulated now. And I believe that. I believe that. And
John Martin 22:38
then the last one, just for people tracking it. And I know they all are the fifth tenant, and if you will, that is, is keep your cool, keep a level head, whether you win or lose that bet. It’s not an open forum to online or in person, berate, criticize a player to individual. You know, we made a decision a couple years ago, in advance of the tournament to not allow prop betting on NCAA activities, and it’s something that I’m proud we did. We were at the lead with a number of other jurisdictions in support of Charlie Baker and the NCAA putting out a similar request so that, you know, you got to draw the line and, and to have, you know, a college kid, a freshman at the free throw line who bricks, you know, two free throws at the end of the game, and these team ends losing and then having to go to to biology the class the next day, or econ and and be, you know, harassed and hounded because some knucklehead, you know, bet more than he or she should have, and now, now it gets a whole aspect of the game that that is not a good look. So keep your cool, keep love headed. I think being in a social environment helps. Setting a budget helps, you know, knowing the odds help. So all these things in interrelated and you can certainly did that information from the American gaming Association website as well as MD lottery.com
Nestor Aparicio 24:06
John Martin appears here each and every week to bring some wisdom as well some education for the games and some responsibility for everything the Maryland lottery is doing. He’s executive director of all things Maryland lottery gaming. Encourage everyone to play responsibly. Have a good time this weekend, we got basketball. We got baseball on the horizon. I started playing baseball in Japan in the middle of the night the other night with the Cubs and the Dodgers over there. I had several friends over in Japan watching baseball. Man, if I had known about that, I might have been in Japan today instead of Toronto, but instead, I got the passport out. Luke and I are ready to go north of the border where we’ll kick off home run riches in Toronto next Thursday, as well as another season of all real baseball. I am Nestor. We are W NST. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, bringing the magic to you. We are Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
