John Martin of Maryland Lottery gets seasonal with holiday winners and scratch-off success with Nestor
Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discussed the Maryland Lottery’s holiday activities and recent winners. They highlighted a Powerball winner with a $50,000 prize from tickets sold at Landover Hills Exxon, John’s Liquor, and Takoma Park 7-Eleven. Martin emphasized the importance of checking tickets and mentioned ongoing promotions, including Second Chance drawings and the Ravens game day experience. They also discussed the Maryland Holiday Light Spectacular at Timonium fairgrounds from December 12-30. Martin reminded listeners not to give lottery tickets to children and shared a story of a winner cheered at a Food Lion.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cake tour, holiday party, Powerball winner, $50, 000 prize, Ravens scratch offs, holiday lights, Maryland lottery, Christmas music, lottery tickets, responsible gaming, holiday spectacular, second chance drawings, lottery promotions, holiday season, lottery winners
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. We are in the midst of a flurry, not just of cold weather and maybe ravens losses and by week and all that. What a flurry of crab cake activity. We have started the tour at Cocos this week, as well as with our friends at fates. We’re going to be there on Wednesday. We’re going to be at amicis the following Tuesday, the 17th, with a whole bunch of city folks stopping by friends of mine that live in a city. They’re like, you’re doing a crab cake door. They don’t have a crab cake there. I’m like, don’t tell anybody. It’s crab cake. Towards the holidays, I think we get Nancy Longo to come over make his crab cake. Anyway, we’re going to have the Pawnee rotundo, and then on the 18th, the big day, we’re going to be doing our big Christmas party at Costas. And I just got confirmation that my 89 year old music teacher from middle school, Mister stadium, is going to be playing the piano with us. For the holidays. We’re going to have some sing alongs. So I’m working on that. John Martin is working on all things Maryland, lottery and gaming. He gives us these Raven scratch offs to give away. I’m almost out of these by the time maybe we get to cost this. I’ll have some peppermints or some golds or something like that. But also, brought to you by our friends, if you do multi care, put us out on the road eating crab cakes, having fun, John. I kicked this thing off with Cocos, and it’s sort of annual now that it’s eggnog Cocos in the city of all the stops this month are in the city before we get to Costas. So I feel like, um, there’s about friends, conviviality, Thanksgiving, leftovers, football, cold weather. It feels like I live in Cleveland, or Buffalo, or maybe not buffalo. I saw buffalo the other night, but, uh, but it feels wintry, and it feels like, um, a really good holiday season we got here, except for what happened to the Ravens the other day. We’re not going
John Martin 01:44
to talk about that. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, isn’t it? Nestor it is everywhere you go, you know what? And you talked about holiday tunes there.
01:53
Do you have a favorite?
John Martin 01:55
Do you have a favorite holiday something that when you hear it, you says, Ah, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 01:58
okay. It’s Christmas. So this is, there’s, there’s several kinds of Christmas. I’m glad you brought this up, because it involves Ingle bird operating. And there’s several kinds of Christmas. There’s my mom’s, you know, Bing, Crosby. At, you know, my mom was born in 1919, so, like, that kind of music, Burl Ives, oh, my like, you know, you hear it every year now, even, like my grandkids will hear that for the rest of their lives. But I would say modern rock, like the Billy squire Christmas song or the Brian Adams Christmas song. I like the Mariah Carey thing, but only after Thanksgiving in a general sense, and she’s in town this week at CFG Bank Arena, so let’s go here, Mariah Singh. But I like that. It comes and it goes. Christmas music. I liked it on december 26 we put it away. I’m not big on playing it in October, but I like all of it. But I like modern, I think when like, Do They Know It’s Christmas time. I’m a child of the 80s, right? So like modern banana, Rama, you know, Christmas dressing, wrapping. I like that stuff. So, you
John Martin 03:01
know, I’m going to go a whole different direction. I am not a deeply religious person, but I did have some religious roots growing up. And to me, a a church choir, singing the the traditional church Christmas songs. Is it just, it gets me
Nestor Aparicio 03:23
ready. You like that? European Christmas is what you’re saying that, you know, European like the lights the snow.
John Martin 03:29
I mean, you know, jumping up and down here. After
Nestor Aparicio 03:35
all, you know, we can I tell you what I pulled up to the royal farms. This is a true story. There’s no Justin Tucker. There’s no I’m not doing any of that. I’ve done all that already. I will do that next week with somebody else. But I pulled up get two pieces of chicken, and on the way in, it’s cold out. Just got off the you know, we were Planet Fitness just going in, and she’s like lotteries over half billion. Let’s go. And I’m thinking, I thought about Christmas, and I thought somebody is going to have a holiday here, whether it’s Kwanzaa Hanukkah New Year, you don’t have to be it’s a half a billion dollars right now. So I know you get on red alerts. Let’s start at the top with saying, Tis the season to win the big one. Tis
John Martin 04:16
the season to win the big one. And yes, check out your MD lottery.com, for up to the minute details as those jackpots roll through the holidays. But you know what? We’ve had some lucky winners this week already, Powerball and what we call a fourth tier winner. The top tier actually made the third tier winner. I don’t care. Forget about the tiers. Tier, which fine, but it is, if someone wins four of the five numbers plus the Powerball, that’s a $50,000 prize, which is not bad for the holidays, and we’ve had three of those still waiting to be claimed, so hold on to your tickets here if you had the numbers 3926, Yes, three, 926, 61 and 67 and a Powerball of 13. If you had four of those first five plus the 13, you won $50,000
Nestor Aparicio 05:09
Powerball was 13. I thought that was unlucky. 13. That’s the Powerball was 13. That’s a lucky See, people, people lucky numbers and superstition and all that. They wouldn’t choose 13 as a Powerball. If
John Martin 05:23
you were in Prince George’s County at the Landover Hills Exxon in Landover if you were in Anne Arundel County at John’s liquor and general store in Pasadena. If you were in Montgomery County at the 711 in Takoma Park, please check those tickets. Come visit me. We’ll have a little eggnog. We’ll sing holiday tunes, 50 grand
Nestor Aparicio 05:42
at egg knock is what I would say for you, if you that that part of it. For my wife, when she goes in, we always have like, that moment that you as the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery want us having, which is, we win the big one. What are we going to do with it? And my wife is always like, she’s always checking, checking the tickets and making sure everything’s good with her app. And I think she is really hopes just to win the 50 grand. She knows about these tears down and thinking there’s a better chance of that. We have three of them the other night. You’re looking for, right?
John Martin 06:10
That’s right there. I just read them. There he goes. A little
Nestor Aparicio 06:13
more often than we think. I guess what you’re saying. You don’t have to win the big banana to win 50 grand on Powerball.
John Martin 06:18
I think most people listen if it first of all, if anyone’s listening, but most people who are listening are watching us. Will take $50,000 right before Christmas. I
Nestor Aparicio 06:28
won’t ask how much the taxes on, and I won’t do all the stuff that I have to do with John Martin. He chestnuts roasting. Does I sound like a Grinch? I mean, I’m singing Christmas songs. Here. It’s coming out of the sky. Um, that what that
John Martin 06:42
is? Okay. I didn’t know what that was. I thought my interference in my in my head said, Listen,
Nestor Aparicio 06:47
I don’t want to talk football with you or anyone else this week until we play next week, but I am holding these Raven scratch offs. I will be talking to football this week on the Maryland crab cake tours. We get this thing rolling. We’re going to be Gertrude at the BMA this week talking to Dan Rodricks, but everywhere I’ve gone the Justin Tucker thing, obviously eight and five a little disappointing, but I know the contest isn’t disappointing when it keeps on giving. And I did say, and I think I told you this two weeks ago, when you gave me the windows name, that they were going to be involved in the Eagles game. And I said, you don’t want that for touchdowns. You want the Giants game for touchdown. So I am feeling like there will be prosperity this week at MetLife Stadium when the Ravens get going again. But these are, these are still happening, and I’m still giving these away. And people are like, can I still win top prizes? Absolutely,
John Martin 07:33
you can come to visit me personally with your winning ticket. I’ll be happy to take cash prize. Well, if you don’t, if you have a non winning ticket, you may enter them into our promotional Second Chance drawings for the Ravens. Just go to MD lottery.com and get the details your user app that you may download and click on that for ways to understand how to get into a my lottery rewards program, because you’re eligible for things like the pass for cash game day experience, where you will have a Ravens alumni on your behalf, throw a football through a target and hopefully win some cash prizes. You could be the fan of the game. Unfortunately, Mr. Richard Rhodes was that for the Eagles game. He won $1,000 for being selected. He got $1,000 for each of the two touchdowns. But you know, from experience, over the year, over the season, some people have been fortunate enough to win four or five, $6,000 but Richard Rhodes again, he’ll take that for the for the for the holiday season as well, leading up to our grand finale, all right, after the Super Bowl of our season tickets for 20 years, we are still collecting finalists for that big event. You can check out all the details at MD lottery.com and even though it’s a bye week, we are working feverishly in the last four games this season here to make sure everyone gets their their opportunities for Second Chance wins.
Nestor Aparicio 08:58
If anybody goes back into the archive of these conversations probably about 810, weeks ago, I gave you a hard time. And I said, let me get this straight. So the Ravens get stopped at the three yard line and they kick a field goal. You know, the winner doesn’t get the $1,000 and I was trying to, like, egg you on, and then you tried to make me pay for it, which, I mean, hey, you know, you’re the executive director of the lottery. And I said, you know, every time we have the greatest kicker ever, and when he kicks field goals, we should be giving extra, give him 500 bucks for a field goal. I think I made that point. Uh, erroneously, obviously, on my point, especially when you wanted me to pay for it. Um, but it is kind of unfortunate we don’t score enough touchdowns, or if you’re the home run riches winner on a night when they don’t hit any home runs, or they get a tough pitcher,
John Martin 09:48
okay, is there a question in there for me? I wasn’t sure in the ranch if they were being
Nestor Aparicio 09:52
a sports guy, is what I’m doing. You know, that’s all right. You can be
John Martin 09:55
that. You can be a lottery guy too. And talk about winners. Winners. Hey, if you’re. Did anybody ever cheer for you? I mean, physically cheer for you in a grocery store. Has that ever happened to
Nestor Aparicio 10:06
you? Not in a grocery store? No, never. No. Boy. There’s
John Martin 10:09
a story there. I’m not going to go into right now. But you know, we had a we had a winner who plays a scratch up game called Joker’s wild. It’s a $5 scratch off game. Top prize, $50,000 really, a big fan of the game. She’s won a few bucks along the way in the duration of the game, and said, Boy, one day I’m going to win that $50,000 so she put it out there. She put it
Nestor Aparicio 10:31
out television show, right? Joker’s wild, same. Not real. Okay, okay, no, okay. I’m just trying to think if it was no, because I remember that show was fun, but yep,
John Martin 10:42
so she matches her numbers on the on the ticket, wins a $50,000 prize, takes it to the Food Lion, where she verifies that with the SIR clerk, and she gets the great news, lot of excitement. And all of a sudden, spontaneously, the employees are cheering for her, and
Nestor Aparicio 11:01
it wasn’t like her birthday or anything, no, well, she
John Martin 11:03
was a big lottery winner. They were clapping, having a good time. I don’t know if anybody cracked open any eggnog. I’m not going to go there, but
Nestor Aparicio 11:10
they had it there. I’m sure they had it there. If anybody
John Martin 11:14
felt so lucky to say, hey, let’s, let’s pass this around. But yeah, I mean, it’s, that’s a fun story, isn’t it? Yeah, I
Nestor Aparicio 11:21
love that. I mean, you know, I love the story last week where the guy went in and found out that the winning ticket was sold there and thought he might have bought it, ran home and got it three, $2.9 million later. So the winning stories are great, but I, I’m always into the branding of these tickets. So you just mentioned jokers. What I you have a whole bunch of, like, winter ones. They they are not scented this year, the peppermint payout. It’s gold outside. But you also have, like, sort of the the monopolies back, right? Like there’s a magic eight ball we talked about this, but there’s all of these different games, I guess, that have colors. And I know when I’m in Costas and I see them in the machine, I see them all, I would think that people have they pick their game and they play their game, right? I mean, and and Ravens fans love this thing. I’ll say that whenever I give it out, scratch offs are multiple and all give you an interesting way to play
John Martin 12:13
part of the challenge with our product development team is when they look at a product plan for the next 12 months, you can, you can pretty much pencil things in that are that are for sure, the Ravens ticket, yeah, you’re going to have two of them this year. We have for a $2 and a $10 ticket. Some years we’ve had different price points. Sometimes we buried the prices. You know, you’re having a holiday lineup. We look for things like a monopoly or a magic eight ball, things that may resonate with various players from either a nostalgia or contemporary Game of Thrones, you know, things that are out there that resonate with various factions of the public, because you don’t want to get so static or boring or predictable that It’s the same same thing, because that’s how you disengage a playership. That’s how you disengage from your from your fans. So the
Nestor Aparicio 13:07
gingerbread and the peppermint scented this year because you didn’t want me to get to you want me to want it again next year, when you roll out the mocha chocolate Swiss, I
John Martin 13:17
cannot, I cannot disclose the secret sauce on that. I’m sorry I want
Nestor Aparicio 13:22
my ticket to smell like an Andy’s candy when I get it, but I I will say this, whatever the incentive is inside. And look, I worked on a newspaper when I was a kid, so every night we were trying to write clever headlines, catchy headlines, meaningful headlines, emotive headlines. I’m a writer, so like in all of this branding stuff, I try to have a good time, like the Justin Tucker thing with kick in and chicken and, like, all the things that was going on this week, that if I ran the Baltimore post or the Baltimore Daily News or, you know, had the tabloid headlines, I could come up with that. But I love this one, and I hope that they get a little extra something in there, the John Martin Maryland lottery. It’s cold outside, you know, like I’m trying to come up with little winter things here to try to be clever, because there would be no higher honor than if I come you wouldn’t even have to pay me if I came up with something that you actually used that would be the highest honor ever, because I would know it was really good, but it so I’m going to try this year to come up with something okay, but every part of the holidays as your as your partner, friend, consumer, Maryland citizen, concerned taxpayer, we need sent to tickets next year, John, you know, well, I’ve
John Martin 14:35
told you, and you you don’t believe me, that the $10 snowflake Tripler does, in fact, smell like snowflakes.
Nestor Aparicio 14:44
John Martin is the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery. He is performing on Friday and Saturday at a underneath of a very, very bad comedy club. Take the stairs down and keep going. We’re having a good time around here. I know you get the winter time. Things sort of slow down a little bit, a lot of holiday parties, but spin the wheel and all that kind of stuff. But you guys get out and do stuff above and beyond. Be very cold in ravens games when we’re passing for cash and doing different things at various points as well, because it does get to be a little chilly this time of year, but it’s also really seasonal, and the lights are out and shopping’s out, my wife and I went out last weekend and we thought there would be like trouble parking, like the old days and all, I think, the online things. But being out and being a part of things, the lottery loves doing that this time of year, especially with these
John Martin 15:29
cool yeah, we are very, very excited about a first time effort for us, not only for us, but for the for the state of Maryland, the Maryland holiday Light Spectacular, which runs from December 12 through the 30th at the Timonium fairgrounds, an outdoor event that’s a half mile walking trail illuminated by Christmas lights. There’ll be opportunities for food, for music. We will be there on Friday the 13th and Saturday, the 14th from 530 to 10pm where you can spin the wheel, win a prize. Come by and say hello. Have a little eggnog and enjoy that. So we’re really looking forward to that one. That’s like I said, new for us, but more poorly, it is the first, hopefully annual, the first annual Maryland holiday Light Spectacular.
Nestor Aparicio 16:18
Read that to me again when it starts up, because I did not, this is the first I’ve heard of it, right? So, first, well, my wife and I, you know, sometimes we drive around. We were up in the Philadelphia area, and there was something like this that we saw on the side of the road, like, you know, five years ago. We’re like, and we’ve been to Hershey Park for lights. And, you know, my wife loves going to 34th Street. My wife is actually attending the Mount Vernon lighting on Thursday this week. So, I mean, it’s always chilly. John, I My people are from the equator. Aparicio is my name, right? So, like, I once it gets below, let’s say, 55 I don’t really like being outside. You know what I mean? Like, I’m, yeah, so like, she likes being outside in the cold, and I don’t, so she’s doing it, and I’m like, have the CoCo. I’ll pick you up, warm you up, get you nice gloves. But it is winter time here. Get on out and that, that isn’t that is available beginning like almost now, right? That the Timonium event starts
John Martin 17:15
December 12, so next week through the 30th, yeah, just, you know, check it out online.
Nestor Aparicio 17:23
That sounds like a fun time. That’s
John Martin 17:24
nice, but, yeah, it should, it should be very and just, just for reference point, my people are from Cleveland, and it’s cold 12 months out of the year, and I don’t like it when it’s below 55 degrees. So that just kind of shot your whole theory there about,
Nestor Aparicio 17:39
does it weird you out that anytime I think of you and see you, especially one of those kind of cardigan sweaters that you wear as the executive director the Marilyn lottery, that I do think of a Christmas story, and Ralphie in the Christmas story house, and I’ve been to the house, and, you know, I’ve been to Cleveland a million times and all that. But there is such a thing about your people in Cleveland that you sort of own Christmas a little bit, you know, and owning a Christmas story, it’s kind of cool in that way. I think I wish that story were Dundalk, if it were, I would own it, you know,
John Martin 18:07
yeah, yeah. And it’s fun. And I’m sure there have been occasions in your illustrious career where you’ve actually been or seen a movie shot either on location or recognized after the fact. So a lot of those scenes were not clearly shot in Cleveland, but some of them were, you know, the exterior of the house, the
Nestor Aparicio 18:28
parade scene in front of that there, there is a plaque with the higbies, if you go, if you just take the the RTA from the airport into the city and walk up into the middle of the town square in Cleveland, for anybody that’s never been to Cleveland, never been to Cleveland, you walk into the set of A Christmas Story and like, and it still looks sort of the same, you know. It’s some sort of black and white way, you know. So then it is kind of neat. I think that Cleveland, Cleveland’s been a part of my Christmas for the last 35 years, because you see it, and it’s very obviously Midwestern, and Cleveland in my mind. Well, yes, well, thank
John Martin 19:03
you for that. Neil was also Midwestern in Cleveland. Ish winning money.
Nestor Aparicio 19:07
Okay, go ahead. I was going to bring up that Ohio State, Michigan thing the other day. Believe. No, no, that was not very Midwestern at all. No,
John Martin 19:14
no, there’s nothing to talk about, but, but again, you can go to MD lottery.com and check these out for all the details, but I’d like some of these. We have a Washington, DC fan resident who came across the border all the way to Maryland from the district and won over $30,000 on racetracks and very popular game, and it’s going straight to his grandkids education. Now that’s a good that’s a very Christmasy thing to do, isn’t it? Racetrack
Nestor Aparicio 19:43
thing messes me up when I see it, because it looks so realistic. You know, I see it when I go into classes. I saw it last week. I was at a green mount station. We did the crab cake tour right there. It’s an amazing I could see where you would sit and play that and feel it doesn’t look like Atari when I was a kid, doesn’t look like. Breakout. No,
John Martin 20:01
no, no, that’s that. That is, for sure. It is. It is not like that at all. But again, lots of winter stories. MD, lottery.com, love the one again, about the woman getting a cheering section there at, at the food line on, on her winning ticket. And again, watch those Powerball tickets if you’re one of the ones we talked about. You know, it’s also the time of year. Just to be serious for a second, we always remind people with the holidays about the responsible gaming efforts, and particularly when it comes time to gift giving. You know, we do provide resources all year long, but especially at the holidays, we want to remind parents and adults that please giving kids lottery tickets is not a good idea. Lottery tickets are for adults. They’re for players 18 years of age and older, and it’s unfortunate, but we know from from historical perspectives. I know my family grew up with it, your family grew up with it, on your wife’s side, in terms of the the patterns of behavior, but But we now know that from early years, unfortunately, some people can be affected by that, and it can lead to to problem and addictive behaviors. Further on, it’s just not there’s lots of options to give gifts to children over the holidays. Lottery tickets should not be one of them. Can
Nestor Aparicio 21:19
somebody give me one a stocking stuffer or office gifts? They the these have made fun sort of Office things for folks, but everybody’s got to be of legal age. And I have that listen when I’m at remount station last week, when I’m at fade Lee’s, there’s always, it’s the market. There’s always young people around. I’m like, can’t give you one, sorry, but I will be giving them to you if you’re at Cocos this week, or if you’re at Gertrude at the BMA with Dan Rodricks and my cousin John shields, we will be at Faith leagues next Wednesday. I think Seth from the lottery is going to join us over to meet you as well. Get a lot of great friends coming down on me cheese to join us on the 17th. That’s going to be a great one. A little baseball theme going on there. And then on the 18th, we will be a Costas. I will have Raven scratch off skin. Wait, but I am open. Hit Roz up and get some. It’s gold outside, because I just like saying that, and because none of them are scented, even though he’s trying to sell me on this snowflake being scented. John Martin is the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery. You know, I would say that’s a little white lie or a fib, because the snowflakes are white lies, but I’m gonna leave that alone. I hope you have a great week. I don’t think we’re gonna get together again before the holiday, so I hope you have a great, great holiday. I know the Browns are gonna be where the Browns are, and we get there. I just hope to Raven survive the holiday, three games, 11 days, kind of craziness. And before I leave you just one sports thing, because you brought it up last week. Jameis Winston’s post game press conference when he throws interceptions, there’s nothing like it. It’s the best in the business. John,
John Martin 22:50
you know, no one realizes they’re going to win anything of consequence, but noone can deny I think the entertainment value is off the charts, pre, during and post. He is worth the price of admission, isn’t he?
Nestor Aparicio 23:07
The Browns have had a lot of quarterbacks, right? I mean, the Flacco thing was a sensation. Look, you’re old enough to remember when Don strock was a sensation. You were strocking around the clock in Cleveland when I came out there one year in my Oilers jersey. And you know, every Brian site and Bernie Kosar and just through all of that, but this James Winston thing for the modern era, and for how much, how many people watch the Browns every week everywhere, and his post game press conferences, and clearly is, you know, devotion to to, you know, to his convictions and to God And the things he says, But praying to stop throwing picks, pick sixes. I should say that that’s an all time quote. I mean, that’s quote of the year. It’s just great. Um, I will see you maybe later in this year, at least. I hopefully see you sometime before. But if I don’t see you, have a great, great holiday, and I’ll take good care of Doug. I hear there’s a great Raven scratch off winner story we’re going to have next week as well. And by the time Seth gets to me down at amicis, this Raven Steelers thing’s going to be on fire, you know. So we got a great month of football around here. Thanks for joining us. Thank
John Martin 24:12
you. Happy holidays. John
Nestor Aparicio 24:13
Martin, Executive Director of all things Maryland, lottery and gaming, with non scented holiday tickets, but still giving away great prizes. I will have some Raven scratch offs here. The Maryland crab cake tour is back out on the road, all the deets up at Baltimore positive.com, bye week around here, but not really for our conversations. Lots and lots things going on, lots of great guests with varied conversations through these holidays. As I said, it’s going to be conviviality, friendship and a lot of food and a little bit of eggnog. It’s Baltimore positive.com. Stay with us. You.
