John Martin and Seth Elkin of The Maryland Lottery give Nestor the annual report from MACo in Ocean City as the Ravens scratch-off promotion begins and another full season of mobile sports wagering is available for local sports fans to bet responsibly.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, year, talking, lottery, gambling, sports wagering, seth, maryland, casino, play, money, scratch offs, mako, casino gaming, players, cleveland, market, wager, programs, state
SPEAKERS
Seth Elkin, John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T Dallas from Baltimore feels like home. I’m in Ocean City, Maryland. We had Tom prolazo on we’re gonna have lots and lots of electeds. We’re gonna have senators, delegates. My wife might even stop by, although she’s been out on the beach sunning herself, and she just arrives here in the middle of the day for lunch. All of it is brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery the gold rush. Seven doublers are here, John Martin. I refer to you off times when you’re off the air. When I hold these up and say, John Martin’s running around trying to figure out how to pay home run riches. John Martin’s figuring out how to get me Raven scratch offs. I know they’re coming. And about once, sometimes twice, a year, John Martin actually appears next to me, as he does person at Mako in the flash, Executive Director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming, as well as Seth Elkin here to represent the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cleveland guardians and the oroz, all of this baseball activity. But once a year we come down here, and this is where you come down and report to the governor, report to the citizens. Seth gives me pie charts and and things to hold up about casino wagering, mobile sports, wager, retail, all of this stuff. This is Mako is a big deal for the it’s
John Martin 01:10
a very big deal, and it does give us the opportunity to kind of summarize what happened last year. Fiscal 24 is in the books, and I’ll let Seth get in a lot of the details, but by all the occasions, was another very strong year. And when, when we win, the entire state of Maryland wins, because clearly all the beneficiaries, whether it’s in our lottery programs, our casino compliance programs, our sports wagering programs, they all feed various programs and and and beneficiaries, and it’s education, it’s public health, public safety, the environment, local impact grants, you name it. And we just kind of cover the whole spectrum. And it was my only question, is another very good year, all right? So
Nestor Aparicio 01:54
good years, and we’re all like in the last four or five years, since the plague, I have you guys on all the time, we went from no sports wagering to you have to go to the casino to do it, and then it was online. And now we’re there, and I would say, and I’ve asked you this before, we’re now mature with this. Like two, three years ago, was all your worry. We’re gonna get this. We’re trying to build that. We’re trying to figure out how they’re doing in other states, and all that. Now that we’re here, how much more money was generated this year than, let’s say, four or five years ago, on that trajectory of what this is grown into. Because one of my thoughts was, and this is just me being an economics dropout, is that, well, you know, people are sports wagering. It’s going to affect the lottery. People are going to play less lottery, less of this, more of that expendable income in the same way that when three concerts are in town the weekend, you can’t do them all right? How has this works that from a what you thought numbers were going to be a couple years ago when there was a black a serious black market for sports wagering in the state, right? Had been for 100 years to bringing it online, to saying we’re doing more now. The
Seth Elkin 02:57
interesting thing is that every time there is additional gambling that’s been added. That concern has always been there. If you go back to when the casinos first started, people said, How is this going to impact the lottery, and will it impact
Nestor Aparicio 03:07
is going to affect horse racing? We’ve always talked about horse racing too. Yeah. But
Seth Elkin 03:12
you know, there was a concern that that the lottery players who you would you would lose would be maybe your keynote players, or your scratch off players who like the frequency and like to be able to play that like the freedom to sit in front of a slot machine and sit and play. But really that hasn’t happened. We’ve seen rising numbers and solid numbers as things have gone along. And what it tells you, I think, is that you’ve got separate audiences. You’ve got separate groups of people who are interested in sports wagering, as opposed to sitting in a casino and playing well, that’s
Nestor Aparicio 03:44
true all along, because anybody that was betting on sports or playing pool or doing any of that nefarious activity with the bookmaker salad, they had the opportunity to play the lottery. They had the opportunity to play the ponies. They could have gone Atlantic. Said there’s a million things they could have done to wager if they wanted to. They want to bet on a football game. They want to be involved in sports, not in scratch offs, let’s say, right? Yeah. Well, and I think
John Martin 04:04
goes to the fact that there are different audiences. You talked about, what happens we have three concerts in town at the same day? Well, if once a country artist and one’s an r&b artist and one’s a what happens
Nestor Aparicio 04:15
if it’s Bruce Springsteen sticks and Lake Street dive on the same night? Because that’s about to happen two weeks from now, we have one car, three shows, two of us. She’s going to Lake Street. Dot. I’m not. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m not doing that.
John Martin 04:28
Well, I would think Seth and I could go to one of those. There
Nestor Aparicio 04:30
you go. Spring steam for us. All right, Steve’s at the top of the list, yes, well, I
Seth Elkin 04:35
don’t know my guys and sticks. You know, being a Steelers fan sticks is a kind of a big deal in pits. But
Nestor Aparicio 04:39
this is the same thing you have when you wake up and say, All right, I want to play a game. I want to wager. Do I want to scratch off? Go for Costas, pick one up. Do I want to play? You play, you play your horse racing game at Costas. Or you can bet the ponies, or you can do what you do, but or go to a casino. At this point, there’s a lot of ways to do this. And I guess 10 years ago, there weren’t, right, there
John Martin 04:58
weren’t. And of course, there. Options are here, and those options continue to grow year after year. And whether they’re they’re opportunities from Maryland lottery gaming or from other sources, you mentioned the black market and and you know, clearly when sports wagering came into being here in Maryland, the sports the black market certainly took a hit, but it still exists. And you know, there’s still opportunities for people to play illegally, and unfortunately, you know, part of what we do, whether it’s casino gaming or sports wagering or sweepstakes, is we continue to educate populations, educate the legislators as to what are the the pitfalls of illegal markets, and why you want to direct those those activities into regulated, legal markets that benefit the state and also protect the citizens.
Nestor Aparicio 05:50
How much money we talking about here? Seth, let’s like Ed McMahon, Tiffany. We need to Tiffany, but once a year we do sort of add this up, and this is your time to do that. We talk about tickets and scratch offs and games. We have a little bit of fun talking baseball and whatnot, but this is where you really report. And we say, all right, rubber meets the road is a lot of you employed in doing this. A lot of you were employed to make this happen. In recent years, it feels like a pretty mature market right now, right the
Seth Elkin 06:13
lottery, the casinos, sports wagering, and a little bit extra from daily fantasy sports, all added up to $1.585 billion B, B, billion with a, b, almost
Nestor Aparicio 06:24
enough to buy the Orioles, almost just a little short billion orders were 1.72 5,000,000,001.58
Seth Elkin 06:31
5 billion from those sources of of gambling that are legal in the state, that contributed to various things. And the money goes to various places, depending on which type you’re talking about, but it’s, it’s a huge number. It’s a it’s a big nuts, $4.3 million a day from the gambling that we regulate that’s contributed to the state.
Nestor Aparicio 06:50
And where does it go? You say various things, and there’s a fund in this, but, but I’m sure education’s big part of this, right? It is? Well, each each
John Martin 06:57
sector, lottery, casino and sports wagering, have their own earmark, their own separate beneficiaries, and so on the lottery side, the vast majority of the profit over $699 million in profit. The majority of that 657 million went to the state’s general fund, and from there it’s dispersed to a variety of programs that folks in Annapolis dictate, you know, want to want, they want to want to support on an annual basis. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 07:28
you see, a lot of that’s a lot of money that can support a lot of programs.
John Martin 07:31
It is, absolutely is, and whether it’s public health, public safety, the environment, transportation,
Nestor Aparicio 07:36
has it always been general fund, since 73 since 50 years? Well, no, it started actually as education, okay, that’s why I mentioned education, yeah,
John Martin 07:44
and a lot of a lot of lotteries around the country, education is the sole beneficiary of the lottery programs. And I can’t tell you when, but you know, soon after, it was redirected to the general fund, and then as the casino gaming came on board back in started in 2010 the majority of their profits go to the Education Trust Fund. And again, this year was over 828 24,000,820 4 million, the majority of that went to the Education Trust Fund. But then money from casino gaming also goes to local community impact grants that are the jurisdictions where the casinos reside. It also goes to the small minority women owned businesses program. Some money also goes to fund Problem Gambling support for services to aid and help people and people and families who are affected by by gaming disorders. And then the most recent with sports wagering. Back in 2021 when we started that and to where we are today. Most recently, over $60 million between sports wagering and daily fantasy sports competitions that we also collect funds from. That goes to the blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund, the Kerwin
Nestor Aparicio 09:07
program. I think we’ve talked a lot about that as sports wagering came on as being the newest thing and and Kerwin,
John Martin 09:12
right? So, so you look at all three of those, and they all kind of, it’s like the guy spinning the plates in the circus, right? I mean, all three of those plates are going to the same time. They’re funding different causes, they have their own constituencies, and people who gravitate towards one or the other or all three. And you know our job is to is to keep keep those games going, keep them entertaining, keep them safe, protect vulnerable populations. Work with the resources we have, not only in game design and advertising, but also to make sure that for people who need the resources, the help is there
Nestor Aparicio 09:43
for the sports wagering side, I think we talk about this a lot incrementally, like the casinos were opening. Everybody’s running the casinos. I remember going down to Maryland Live and seeing the lines the sports wager during the playoffs maybe two years ago. And you. Were wondering how the split would happen. And I think you and I talk about this all the time in other states, 85% or whatever it was, rent, our state’s been overwhelmingly mobile, right? Like, in a sort of a shocking way, even for some of the people I know that have licenses that thought it would be more storefront. It is no wonder people were crushing you and sending emails saying, When are we getting mobile? When are we getting mobile when we get mobile? Because they wanted it and and I think the numbers have beared that out much more so than anything we could have predicted five years ago.
Seth Elkin 10:29
Yeah, I think we expected maybe 80, 85% somewhere in there, and it has been more like 96 97% of of this, the sports wagering market has been done on mobile, so that’s where it’s popular. But you know, I think the thing to remember there is how, as you look at other forms of gambling, you know, there’s not an expectation necessarily that that people would gravitate toward online, necessarily in other forms of gambling, it’s all about the experience and the player experience. It’s just like we talked about with the Kino players, and whether or not they’re going to be drawn over to the casino, it’s what do you want out of the gaming experience. And for some people, going to a sports book and going to a casino is the experience they want to have, that immersive experience of being in that atmosphere, rather than doing it on the phone. So it just depends on how people want to experience it. For the sports wagering, people, it seems as though that’s where the market is. People want to be able to have the flexibility to do it as a game is in progress and and have it on their phone. But for other kinds of gaming, it remains to be seen whether that would necessarily be the way it goes. So very interesting developments as we look to the future.
Nestor Aparicio 11:38
I know we talked to people about trouble and trouble gamblers and people getting the line for football season wagering on these preseason games. You degenerates. But once the games really start and people get involved, we’re gonna be doing a lot of talking, because there is a real addiction problem. And John, I know you’ve talked about this at length, and you know people beat you up in this and that. Executive Director, we encourage people to do this. People are doing it already. You’re offering an opportunity for people who do have problems to come forward. And I know you’re going to get me involved with the one in 100 people, because I do want to talk to them and say, What happens when the phone rings? What happened? Because I’ve mentioned this, I’ve had people that have worked for me, people I know that I’m like, this is a real this is like having a liquor cabinet open and, you know, no lock on it for some people, but when they reach to get help, I’m sure, over the last year or two, lots of people have reached. I really want to learn about that process of how you can help these people, because it is an addiction. And
John Martin 12:37
I think some of the things that Seth and I see anecdotally, if nothing else, is that, you know, initially, You’re quick to think, Well, if there’s an increase in calls, these are the people who all of a sudden start gambling when sports wagering. That’s not the case. It not only is that not the case, but it’s also families. It’s also friends. So when we get more calls in, or as it’s reported, more calls into the hotline, it’s not necessarily the person, quite frankly, that’s probably the least likely, is the person themselves. It’s a family member.
Nestor Aparicio 13:11
It’s someone who’s my husband has problem, my son has problem, right, right,
John Martin 13:15
right, who’s affected by it, who maybe wasn’t aware. And I think through, you know, our efforts, not that it’s only ours. There are many people involved. When you educate the mass about one 800 gamblers a phone number or MD gambling help.org as a website, you’re educating people who maybe didn’t even know those options were available. So now you’re, as you said a minute ago, people who’ve been gambling for a while now are exposed to resources they didn’t know existed. So automatically, the numbers of people calling are going to rise, but it’s very I’d be hesitant to draw a direct line between increased calls meaning an increase in the in the problem gambling population. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 13:57
I would also say for the ease to do this and the fact that it’s registered on a phone. Look, all of us spend money. All of us look at our visa bill every month. It’s all digital. We all look at our and you can I would think it was different if you had a problem with Louis the bookmaker who had a gun, and, you know what I mean, and you owed him money. Or, you know, we make jokes about Pete Rose 100 years ago, that is a different thing than looking on an app where my understanding, and again, I’m not a gambler in that way, my understanding is, if I started gambling and every 10 minutes was putting $100 on a pitch, the thing would put some brakes on me and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your roll, right? I mean that these things are sort of built in, in a way, in the old days, that net wasn’t there and that receipt wasn’t there to say, how much might you know what? And I would think 100 gamble they could look at your records say, Oh, well, Whoa, you’re doing something here that five years ago, there were no records of that, that Louie the bookmaker was keeping, and also No. No ability to have professionals get involved and try to help you out. And that’s a that’s there.
Seth Elkin 15:06
That’s the opportunity that exists in that, in that online platform, is to be able to put a message in front of somebody saying, Here’s how long you’ve been signed on, here’s how much you’ve wagered in the time that you’ve been signed on. That you can’t do when somebody is at a retail
Nestor Aparicio 15:18
my phone tells me how much I’m on my phone. Yeah, a weekly report saying, here’s how much you turn it down a little bit, get off the phone, go for a walk, to follow up on
Seth Elkin 15:27
what John was saying. I think that the important thing we try to emphasize when we talk about calling the one 800 gambler number for help, it’s, it’s not necessarily the people themselves. It’s if you know someone in your life that that you think has an issue with this, that you probably don’t know how to start the conversation with them. And that’s something really important. If you’re a family member and you want to try and open up that conversation with that person in your life, you can get help figuring out how to start that conversation by calling and talking to somebody, one of the things they’ve got there and I hope we can hook you up with the center of excellence, that they can tell you about this themselves, is that they’ve got peer recovery specialists. These are people that have have experienced gambling addiction themselves and have been down that road, and they know from firsthand experience, and can talk to someone from that perspective about how to how to best, confront somebody or and confronts probably the wrong word, how to best, just bring it up. How To Best, just discuss it, to do it in a productive way and in a constructive way. So that’s something really important for everybody to keep in mind. When you hear those commercials on the radio, you hear one and under gambler, and you say, well, that’s not for me. Well maybe it might be for you. It might be for you, for you to be able to help somebody else. So it’s important,
John Martin 16:41
and I would add to that, that the the all the players are well aware of this and trying to provide those resources. So you know, bed MGM, FanDuel, Draft Kings, whoever our operating partner is on the sports wagering side, they all advocate for players to own. The process set in place controls whether you’re putting time spend or time limitations or spend limitations, and the apps honor that too. And the apps are built to do that, yeah, and unfortunately, like a lot of these situations, that doesn’t mean Each player takes advantage of those tools, but the tools
Nestor Aparicio 17:19
are there. You made them do that, right? I mean, it’s part of the No,
John Martin 17:22
they’ve done it on their own. I mean, you know, we, we, by the time we got to the markets, there’s no parameter on that then, right? I mean, the parameters are there, and all of the app providers have the parameters there. And unfortunately, sometimes people don’t take advantage of that. They don’t, they don’t opt in to take those controls. But when you do that, you certainly have another level of protection and safeguard. Let’s have some
Nestor Aparicio 17:45
fun around here. John Martin’s here, Seth Elkin from the Maryland lottery, talking about all this stuff football and look, I got to get Roz. He’s Gold Rush sevens. They’re nice tickets, but I understand there’s a special purple ticket that’s going to be making its way beginning this weekend, because I asked you, when can I get me like, can’t happen till we give them away at the football game. Gotta give away at football game. So after Saturday, if you’re going down to the Falcons a preseason game, we’re gonna have Raven scratch offs, right?
John Martin 18:14
If, if you’re lucky enough to be at Mt Bank Stadium this weekend, it’s the 17th, we will kick off the Ravens program. Both the $2 and the $10 ticket will be available at M and T Bank Stadium for the for the game, and then 4300 plus retailers on Monday, the 19th, will begin selling the Ravens tickets.
Nestor Aparicio 18:36
Where’s the big trip this year? Where’s the experiential going
Seth Elkin 18:39
to New York City?
Nestor Aparicio 18:40
I’ve been there. Go bits of Big Apple, go big or go home, right? Going to make the trip? Well, I hope that the winner this year comes on the show and tells me that Kyle Hamilton brought them cheesecake on the team. Be a train. Yeah, it’s going to be a train.
18:55
Think it’s going to be a train trip? Yeah? I
Nestor Aparicio 18:58
hope it’s a seller. You know, get them there fast. Get him up there.
John Martin 19:02
Well, have to get the cheesecake ready to go right, right up the store.
Nestor Aparicio 19:06
Your tickets for life guy was great. He’s going to be joining me on a couple of Super Bowl because your tickets for life winner last year is involved in helping people. He’s a wonderful guy. He’s taking his daughters to the game. I’m sure he’ll be at the game this weekend for the Falcons. So football seasons here, and you know, then I can beat you guys about the appropriate things with the Steelers or the browns, right? I can get after you on that, right?
John Martin 19:25
You know, right now, I think they’re all oh and oh, you said, you
Seth Elkin 19:29
said purple. First thing I thought is, you’re talking to
Nestor Aparicio 19:32
the wrong what’s Tomlin doing up there with that free there’s a battle royal on the field up there in Latrobe two weeks. Yeah. How about it? Swinging helmets quarterbacks not getting along training campus. I’d hate to think that there’s discord in Pittsburgh that would really hurt my feelings in August. You know,
Seth Elkin 19:48
training camp is where we get all the kicks worked out. So it’ll be all right. It’s
John Martin 19:51
going to be interesting, because I thought the My beloved Browns maybe lacked some some skills when it came to. And to player development. And they were early on, maybe whack, I don’t know about that. They were early on in the
Nestor Aparicio 20:06
branded triangle here, nobody’s going to get along here,
John Martin 20:10
early on in the Brandon Iuka free for all. And declared their willingness to do that. And then, of course, they realized they were getting played. But yet another team thought they could get in at the 11th
Nestor Aparicio 20:24
year. Brown sky, just bringing up your quarterback, your ownership, I will say this. I was in Cleveland two weeks ago, went to blossom, did all that nice. The whole notion that they’re trying to get a stadium done there like that, is a little bit zone fiasco,
John Martin 20:38
right? Yeah. Well, again, and I know Richfield
Nestor Aparicio 20:40
guy, though, right? You were a suburban driver, too.
John Martin 20:44
I’ve been to Richfield and in the glory years of the Cavaliers and right now, you know, they leveled the whole thing. It is, it is a field. It is. I
Nestor Aparicio 20:54
attended one basketball game there. I saw the cabs fitting,
Seth Elkin 20:57
because that’s all that’s out there, anyway. Is a bunch of fields I’ve been I was there once to blossom.
Nestor Aparicio 21:01
Is lovely. Put together from the Kent State people for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. Was beautiful out there. It is very beautiful out there. It is very beautiful. But is it going to be beautiful for a football
John Martin 21:11
stadium? Well, I unfortunately, I think that’s there’s going to be a challenge, because the monies, the public monies, don’t seem to be there for that, the public monies want to try to retrofit the stadium the same
Nestor Aparicio 21:24
thing the motel family went through 30 years ago. Is it exact same story,
John Martin 21:29
condemned to repeat history, right? Yeah. So I think that’s going to be a challenge. So we’ll see how that plays.
Nestor Aparicio 21:36
As long as the history they repeat is not winning the Super Bowl, it’ll be Ken Baltimore. Take another team. No, we had enough. We’re good. We just built the black wing. Let him try to sell that. They moved the media up into the corner now under and I told Luke this when they moved him from the press box up to the corner when I was pimping the PSLs back in 95 and 96 on the air and Roy summer off was coming on. David Modell, God rest his soul. I know we may feel differently about him, but I love David. I never disparaged David. He was my dude, but I’m going to disparage him right now, even though he late and great, he the original brochures when they were trying to give us the poor suckers license the PSLs, they called them the victory arches. The corners of the stadium were called the victory arches. They were called that, and I’ve been making fun of that for 30 years, the victory arches. So I said to Luke, I’m like, they didn’t move you from the 50 yard line to the corner of the enzyme. They moved you under the victory arches. So this is what happens when you have tradition here. Did
John Martin 22:32
he feel better about that? No seat still stinks.
Nestor Aparicio 22:35
Seth Elkin is here. John Martin there with the Maryland lottery. They just put out this pressure. This is all online, right? If citizens want to go up and check out the pie charts and what are you proudest of the lottery? I give you a chance to platform a little bit here as executive director. What makes you proud to get up every day and run the lottery? Because you bring a lot of numbers, a lot of money, somebody’s got to run this thing. But in the end of the day, you have great people. Whenever I’m out in your building visiting people, it’s a lot of people employed by it. They all like you. You like them. It’s a it’s a fun but don’t, this is a lot of money, dude,
John Martin 23:08
don’t do a roll call vote. I’ll tell you that. I don’t think I want to see how that shapes up. But you know what? And you’ve alluded to it until I’ll go there it is the people. We have 320 plus employees and at the lottery, and you know, every day they are committed to their to their craft, whether they’re on the lottery side, the casino regulatory side, the sports wagering side, staff it, making the purple tickets look purple, making the tickets right. And each and every day they they continue to do their their best and exceed expectations and and make, make the player experience what it is. Whether it’s did this
Nestor Aparicio 23:46
exceed your expectations, you have to put a perform together. Say what you think we’re going to do. I mean, is this, all of this
John Martin 23:52
a little bit because we, I, we knew going into fiscal 24 following our 50th anniversary year, in fiscal 23 it wasn’t going to it wasn’t going to exceed that. It was going to fall short of that. But we felt it was going to be our second best year ever. And it was so the
Nestor Aparicio 24:08
50th anniversary was just a different thing. Oh yeah, yeah. The
John Martin 24:11
new products, new promotions, the things, the energy. On a 50th anniversary, you can’t repeat that in year 51
Nestor Aparicio 24:16
I’m trying to do my 26 this year. I’m trying to come up with, like a boot PAL or rod Woodson, like a 26 I don’t know, nice, I’m working on it nice.
John Martin 24:26
Get Boog one of those big Cleveland Indians red uniforms. That’s what you need.
Nestor Aparicio 24:30
I remember I had that baseball card saying that was a sight. That was a sight. We try to forget that, along with forgetting Johnny, you ever played with the chargers and all that? Yeah, I’ve tried to forget the Flacco play for the browns and now is it a colts uniform? Yeah,
John Martin 24:43
but I think he’s holding a clipboard, isn’t he?
Nestor Aparicio 24:46
For now, you never know better than
Seth Elkin 24:49
sitting on the couch. That’s where he started last
John Martin 24:50
year. Yeah, you know what he’s he will have a spot in Cleveland history. Looks like he has in Baltimore history. It’ll be a different spot. But he. He, he served, he served the team well. He, he sees a great guy. I’m just
Nestor Aparicio 25:05
glad you know, Brian SIPE.
Seth Elkin 25:06
I’m just glad he doesn’t have a spot on our wall anymore. We used to have a framed photo of Joe Flacco on the
Nestor Aparicio 25:10
wall. You itch to walk in his office the way it may be. It’s
Seth Elkin 25:14
to walk past that Flacco photo for the first seven The thing I
Nestor Aparicio 25:18
love about Seth’s office is he has a penguins, a doormat that I can wipe my feet on when I go in. And I always make sure, did you use what I do? I dirty my feet up a little bit extra out in Carroll park before I even go in, just to make sure that, you know, I
John Martin 25:31
get it, yeah, well, I used it for more than my feet. I’ll just say I get to ride
Nestor Aparicio 25:35
you guys in person one time a year together. So at least have fun with this on the eve of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Baltimore all getting together. All we need is one. You have anybody in your office that works from
25:46
Cincinnati? Yeah, that’s where the line is drawn. Yeah,
John Martin 25:49
that’ll never happen. No,
Nestor Aparicio 25:51
I’d wipe my feet on a reds Matt Right now if I had an opportunity. So baseball’s good, though, and at some point the pirates will catch up. This is where we get the gang up on.
Seth Elkin 25:59
Well, at what point is that? I don’t but
John Martin 26:02
pirates have exceeded expectations. Well, no,
Nestor Aparicio 26:04
they shut down skis. The
John Martin 26:06
pirates have shut them down as we miss that shut
Nestor Aparicio 26:08
himself down. That’s the way they do it these days.
Seth Elkin 26:09
As we speak, the pirates have lost 10 games in a row, so they are right along in line with expectations, right in time for fewer training camp. They’ve lost 10 in a row, so the season’s over. I did
Nestor Aparicio 26:19
not know I love chaos in Pittsburgh. There’s nothing better than chaos in Pittsburgh. That’s
Seth Elkin 26:23
not, that’s not chaos, I’m telling you, that’s right in line with, right in line with expectation. Well, yeah, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 26:30
I like it better when Ross comes on the show, because she’s one of us. She’s like a real Baltimore person. You know, I get to fight with these guys. Seth Elkin is here, John Martin here. They’re great friends in the Maryland lottery, I’ll have these gold rush sevens doublers to give away next Friday. We’re gonna be at fade leaves the cheatstros. We can all agree that the Astros cheated, right? All right, good. We all agree on that. We can all agree we don’t like the Yankees, right? Yes, very much. Is there anything else we can all agree on? We love crab cakes?
John Martin 26:54
Okay, yes, yeah, that’s it. Those three things I’m doing the oyster
Nestor Aparicio 26:57
tour next month. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery, our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, keeping our water clean, just like the oysters, keep the water in the bay clean. And Jiffy Lube multi care getting us out. If you want to learn some more about the Maryland lottery, and certainly, if you know anybody with a gambling problem, use the one 800 number. Go to the website, get the help that they need. And in the meantime, the rest of us who know how to do this responsibly will continue to gamble responsibly. Have a good time with this. We hope so and contribute to the state’s general fund. We are down here contributing to Mako. That is the Maryland counties conference, bringing folks like John Martin together, as well as Ben Cardin is going to be coming by, both our senators, Chris Van Hollen, be coming by. Lots of elected the former mayor of Hagerstown, Emily Keller, will be coming by, talking about opioid abuse in our state, and the work that she’s doing. Even my boy corn bread from the Eastern Shore has been upgraded from delegate to special appointee of Governor Wes Moore. He’ll be joining us as well over the week. So we got a lot of great guests. We’re doing a lot. I’m doing everything down here, but getting sunshine. You know, my wife, she thought she was going to come and be the executive producer, and I took her over to salt water 75 and she looked out on the bay and she saw someone doing that paddle board thing. And she’s like, that’s where I’m going to be on Friday. I don’t need to be with Ben Cardin. I don’t need to be with Chris Van Hollen. I’m going to be out on the bay. So it’s vacation and a little bit of work down here doing it up, right?
John Martin 28:14
Well, that’s good. I just saw a rainbow unicorn walk by. So I think it’s time for me to go. It’s time for
Nestor Aparicio 28:20
me to get some lunch. John Martin and Seth Elkin, our guest from the Maryland lottery. We are live here in Mako in Ocean City, at the fish pal Convention Center. Back for more on Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
