John Martin of Maryland Lottery crunches numbers on casino totals and a robust sports wagering fall buoyed by the local football success of the Commanders and Ravens.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Lottery, Ravens Scratch Offs, Second Chance Opportunity, Fan of the Game, New York Trip, Casino Revenue, Education Trust Fund, Sports Wagering, Mobile Betting, Commanders Stadium, Retail Sports Book, Thanks Winning, Holiday Cash, Crab Cake Tour, Oyster Tour
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive, a long week waiting for the Pittsburgh Steelers and trying to get the defense together and get the kicker right and get everything else together. We know Lamar has it together, and I have the Maryland crab cake tour together. All the brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I have Raven scratch offs to give away this. Um, this was the kiss face bird thing right here on the ticket that we wore on the helmet. That the logo was a little small, but I kind of liked it. Uh, Luke and I did a whole segment on fashion tweets, because what else would you talk about after 3534 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care put this out on the road. I’m wearing my cocoa shirt. We’re going to be at Cocos on December 4. A lot of my crab cake places, as you know, in a crab cake where they ship through the holidays. And they’re like, get in earlier because it gets crazy. And Pete’s over Costa. She’s like, we got the room out. We got all this groups coming in for Christmas party, holiday parties. I’m like, we’ll do the show at the bar. So we’re going to be doing it under Christmas trees and holiday ornaments with all of our friends, all the brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery, I’ll have Raven scratch off, no scented tickets to give away this year, but perhaps peppermint Scratchers, but not sniffers. John Martin is here. He’s the Executive Director of all things Maryland lottery gaming, and is, you know, sir, very responsible with his job and what he does. And he goes to bed at halftime on football games on Thursday night and awaken to see that we played some football here on Thursday night. And I know you have your pass for cash, and you have a whole bunch of things going on. Listen, I know your game’s exciting. Tickets for life’s exciting. And going to New York in a couple of weeks would be exciting. But tell you what? Nothing more exciting than lining up for two with your life on the line at the end of the game, wow. And the bank is right. I mean, there’s strategy, and then there’s just good fortune. I would say, Well, yeah,
John Martin 01:54
and boy, if nothing else, I’m in the Fortune, good fortune business. But yeah, how about that? And truth be told, self self disclosure here, self reporting. I normally don’t even stay up for the kickoff, let alone halftime. So that’s that’s what
Nestor Aparicio 02:08
kind of long segments on boycotting Thursday night football, just based on the fact that we don’t think they should be playing, because we’ve met football players and we realize, like they can’t talk physical safety, like I just I’m not a proponent of Thursday night and now that it’s only on my computer and not really on my TV because of the way I do my cable and like that, I can’t say I watch a lot of Thursday night football when I’m not engaged, or when it’s not an AFC sort of north, or maybe a Patrick mahomes or something like that. But it was a great game. I mean, as much as we kick it around, it’s something we’re going to be talking about here for 10 days. Yeah,
John Martin 02:39
yeah. And you know who else would be talking about it. Let me make sure I get this right here. I believe yes, yes, yes, yes.
Nestor Aparicio 02:45
Late touchdowns made somebody money. I know it.
John Martin 02:49
Yes. W, first initial only. W, Mitchell of Pikesville
Nestor Aparicio 02:53
discussed W last week, because I said, if you’re going to pick either game, pick the one against Cincinnati, because they can’t play defense. That’s what I said.
John Martin 03:01
Wow, wow. I hope W Mitch will watch it to the end, because they get $1,000 being selected our fan of the game, and this is all available at MD lottery.com We’re of course, talking about our ravens second chance opportunity. If you buy the $2 $10 ticket and you may not win a cash prize, please enter those into our drawings. We have drawings next one coming up next week, so we’ll have drawings in November, December, and two in December to have drawings for Second Chance prizes. One of them is to be the fan of the game, so $1,000 just to be selected, and then $1,000 for each touchdown. Nestor. You do the math, because I’m not good at it. How much did W Mitchell win yesterday?
Nestor Aparicio 03:42
Is, is that 167, how much was it?
John Martin 03:47
There were five touchdowns, six, grand, six,
Nestor Aparicio 03:52
yes, yes, doing the math on that. You know what I was thinking about. I was thinking about the New York trip because, like, you know, we need to promote that, right? What does that the trip soon, right? But, I mean, when do we win? Or did we middle of
John Martin 04:04
December? No, we, we’ve already selected those winners again. You can find them at MD lottery.com there’ll be three lucky winners, Leonard Brown of granite, Maryland, Juan Garcia of Riverdale, Maryland, and Raymond Jones of Salisbury. Those three lucky winners and a guest will be on the team train to New York for that game on the 15th. I believe it’s the 15th of December. Have
Nestor Aparicio 04:24
I? Have I ever told you about my train ride with the Ravens? Have I have I told you the story? Go ahead. No, I so. So in the history of the ravens, in 30 years, I rode on the team charter twice, one way twice. And this is back in the model eras before Steve Bucha on the team and David loved me, and that nobody thought anything, you know, media being on or whatever. It wasn’t like that. Um, it was convenience. So the first time I rode the train back from the. Meadowlands after a preseason game. Remember, we used to play those preseason game up there, back here, so they played a preseason game. And this is when I was nationally syndicated. And I was in New York, working, doing my show at Mickey mantles on Central Park South to plug the trip, because I love Dan down. So I love New York, so especially the desserts, the cookies, it’s the French desserts that bring me to New York. So the team train was coming home, and I was over in the Meadowlands. This is when cabs were under bucks and whatnot. And I was in New York working, and they played a preseason game, and I bummed the ride back with the team. The team had to train, and I said, Can I jump on the train to get home? Otherwise we have to go back to New York and get on the train to get home, but spend the night, whatever. Kevin Byrne, art modell, Dave model, get on the train. John, I got on that train, and it’s like a seller two hours and 12 minutes doesn’t stop in Philly or Wilmington. Nothing, you know, nothing like that. You
05:58
got the Express. Man,
Nestor Aparicio 05:59
you’re right on the so I was, this is 25 years ago now. This is 2001 I can tell you exactly what it was. It was, it was after they won the Super Bowl. Was like August of o1 this was that train ride when I got on that train. And I had never been on the plane. I did that a month later, coming back from Denver after 911 was only way to get home. Remember, all the flights were messed up and whatnot. Ravens allowed me to fly on the team charter home from Denver, and we ate on that one too. But just the food alone, last year, I had the winner on who went to Jacksonville with the team, and the first thing he talked about was roquan Smith giving him cheesecake. And I’m thinking, you know why roquan? Because there was that was a lot of cheesecake. There’s just a lot of everything. It’s, it’s kind of like that flight that Elaine and Jerry were on coming back, more of anything, more of everything. And when leech New York, everything’s better in New York, trust me. And they put, they put it on the train. So these winners, if I were them, if you put them all with me, like we say, December 15 is when the game is it’s holiday time. Put the eggnog gift I wouldn’t eat. I would fast before I got on the train on Saturday, going up to New York and back, because I’ve never still make more better food
John Martin 07:11
I ate. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You are not the culinary executive on this trip, so I don’t know what will be available to them, but yeah, hopefully the three of them will have a wonderful time and their guests that’s coming up
Nestor Aparicio 07:25
telling you my train ride with the Ravens from New York was something I’d like to talk about. 25 did
John Martin 07:31
you get to actually go up to the little train engineer station? They put the little hat on you and give
Nestor Aparicio 07:36
you and it wasn’t like Silver Streak, where they had waiters and they brought the thing out and to cover did. It wasn’t anything. It was just like a lot of food. It was like boxes of food. It was a lot of food. It was delicious. Well,
John Martin 07:48
those are, those are big guys. They need to eat. Even in the preseason, they need to eat. Everybody
Nestor Aparicio 07:52
feels like a winner, except the Bengals here this weekend. And I know you have big numbers, and we talk a lot about this. And I did go to New York this week, and it was interesting. When I went through various states, I saw the one 800 gambler message, good for everyone. And so, you know, I want to bring that at this time of the year, it’s football season, and I see the inducements to wager and whatnot, but we still have a very, very lively casino environment in the state. I was down at MGM for a concert last month. I put pictures up. A friend of mine went down to Maryland Live recently and just said beautiful things about his experience there, and how lovely and nice was you have numbers you still, aside from just a lottery as well as sports wagering, there’s still a whole casino environment. A lot going on here in the state, as as you add up numbers and what all of this means for really, for the citizens on an election week. John Martin of the Executive Director of the Maryland lottery, I just don’t know
John Martin 08:51
where we find the time. Nestor, but we do. That’s what we do here. We have good people who who find the time to do things like reporting and regulating our casino industry. Of course, we have six casinos we’re very proud to partner with throughout the state. And once a month, typically around the first week of every month, we release our casino numbers. And for the month of that would have been that would have been October, right here we are in the in November. So the month ending October 31 casino revenue was about $160 million which was a good month, a decent month, for, for, for, for revenue, but then we also contribute to the state coffers and the additional $68.6 million to the state in the month of October. The key thing about that is cumulatively easy for me to say, from when we started casino business in 2010 to now, we just crossed the 6 billion. That’s what the B A, $6 billion threshold on our contribution to the Education Trust Fund, which is one of the key primary
Nestor Aparicio 09:56
beneficiaries, $6 billion in 15 years. Yep.
John Martin 09:59
And. Those nickels and dimes add up, don’t they?
Nestor Aparicio 10:03
That’s an that’s a huge number. Yeah. I mean, like, that’s, well, bigger than I thought you were going to tell me. And I guess that’s why we’re talking about and bragging on it a little bit. The thing I would say about the casino thing, and I’ve done business with Hollywood casino last year. We did picks, we did numbers. I know they’ve done some rebranding, and ESPN and bars, a lot of things have gone on just, you know, since mobile came on you and I have been talking about this for a number of years, when just trying to get mobile wagering together, and now I see it and feel it when I’m out crab cake touring, when I’m places, the way people interact with sports. But I there’s still a part for me and my wife and I went to see sting right after my birthday. So say it was in October. We contributed. We could
10:42
trust it. How’s he doing? Incidentally, tell him I say hello next time you know
Nestor Aparicio 10:46
what? Um, that’s not the wrestlers thing. Now, not the got the painted face? Oh, no, no. Sting. Roxanne, please. So sting, uh, played right over. My birthday is when Stevie Wonder was down at the arena October 1516, and I forgot about it. I didn’t put it my calendar. I woke up my wife, Sting’s number one for her, right? It’s like, like, we’re going to see sting if we can. So got some tickets, and we went down. And it’s just, it’s like walking into Las Vegas to some degree, and it’s closer than you think all the places are, but it it’s a great experience, and it’s one where, like, for my wife and I, and I guess part of it staying, part of it’s getting in the car and navigating, getting down to DC beltway and whatnot. But it feels like you want to, I had to shave. I had to get your I felt, you know, there’s something about going out and, you know, and having that available. And you said, 2010 I was 42 years Oh, God, I’m getting old, John, I was 42 years old before that was available other than AC or you know what, what you would do on a full blown level, it didn’t really become fully sports capable in this state until five minutes ago, literally under your watch here recently, where for the first 30 years of my radio career, to talk about betting on things would be going to Vegas, and for the first 22 years of my radio career, betting and wagering and blackjack and casino games, and that great night out meant getting on a plane to Las Vegas, and now you come back, 15 years later, you’re like $6 billion all of that money used to go to Vegas or go to Atlantic City or go somewhere else, or, as we would say, the bookmaker down at getting the Sabatino salad, but, but this is on the Up and up now, and I I’m guilty as charged. I went to a casino last month and had a good time and got dressed up with my wife, and I didn’t have to fly to Vegas. So there, you know, there’s your public service. We had a great night. Good
John Martin 12:51
for you. And you know, it’s interesting too, because those are the casino numbers. Next week we’ll announce our sports wagering numbers for the month. They typically are on that cadence. We announced the first week of the month sports around casino revenues, second week of the month sports wagering. And it’ll be interesting when the numbers come out, because I’ve had a little sneak peek at them before they run out, that the the handle, the amount of money that we took in on sports wagers, will set an all time record. It’ll be the largest sports wagering handle that we’ve had ever in Maryland on sports wagering, which is not necessarily surprising. Look at it. October is a very robust month. It is one of those interesting months where you’ve got professional baseball and World Series playoffs going on, you’ve got professional football, you’ve got hockey and you’ve got the NBA, you’ve got basketball, so you have the big four all have significant activity in the month of October, as well as the college football season and the other sports that are of interest to people. So it’s a very heavy calendar, which is clearly contributes to the to the handle, the net amount wagered. But the interesting part is that distribution, and as we talked and tying into your recent comment here, 97% of the sports wagering money action is on the phone. Only 3% of that sports wagering revenue is people physically in the casino. And
Nestor Aparicio 14:19
let’s say this, and I don’t want to throw you under the bus, as the executive director, we’ve been talking for a number of years, I don’t think anybody was prepared for 97 three, right? Like, I think, I think 8515 maybe 9010 like, this is something y’all got wrong, you know, like, we we brag about things, we get them right or whatever, but there was no guessing that they would be this heavily engaged, because, to my point, it’s a thing to do. It’s a it’s a night out. It’s drinks and music and dancing and entertainment shopping, a big steak if you want some Mexican food, wait. Whatever Asian food in the case of Marilyn, I mean, just it’s a night out, and it’s a plan to make. And I think no one knew how popular this was going to be, the mobile side of sports wagering. Right
John Martin 15:11
when the numbers are released next week, again, those people who really care about numbers will do a little deeper dive at it. And what you’re going to see is that the whole what’s left after the the sports books taking the money and pay out the winners. How much do they hold? What’s left? And the numbers are relatively low in the month of October, as they’ve been in previous months compared to previous months, which means the players are winning more. And why do the players win more? Well, the Favorites tend to win more. People tend to emotionally bet the favorite. And when you look at the ravens and the commanders and the success they had the month of October, you look at people who may be I know you’re shocked to hear this may have been anti Yankees, and we’re betting heavily on my beloved guardians early on. But then, more importantly, again, with the Dodgers, when those favorites win, players win, but the hold gets smaller, and so you’re going to see some relatively smaller hold numbers, and especially in retail, even though it’s only 3% significantly, even for some locations below zero holds, which means they’re paying more than what they were were able to hang on to, which was an interesting dynamic to me, and I’m wondering, Okay, those are people that are probably consistent casino players who looked up and said, Oh, look at that. The World Series is on. Let me go over that sports book right here. Take a little break from my my lucky sevens machine, and let me walk over there, and let me pay to put a bet on, on the Dodgers and and that’s what I’m guessing is coming out of those numbers. And certainly those are like, like, like, your Northern Lights. You know, they’re once in a lifetime things well, the commanders
Nestor Aparicio 16:52
and the Ravens both being really significant with these great, transcendent quarterbacks. And one thing we forget here. And look, I don’t take any opportunity I’ve ever had to kick the Washington football franchise. It’s part of my brand. You know, I mean, 33 years into this, but I would say this new ownership sanitized a lot of things, but things that fans don’t know here is there’s, like, a whole part of your business that’s even attached to what’s going on there that’s really sort of unprecedented throughout the country in sports. That’s a little bit of a trendsetter. And as the commanders go, I would think so would the action in PG and montgomery county go toward that in a bright, bright light, because it’s sort of built into the stadium there. Yeah, that that
John Martin 17:40
that only stands to reason. And whether that’s enough of a bellwether change that others do that going forward remains to be seen. There. Can you
Nestor Aparicio 17:49
express that to me and my because I I’m literally, I haven’t been, I haven’t been to a concert down there, or anything in recent I think Coldplay played down there, like I almost went. And now there’s like a game down there that, if I don’t know if the right quarterback, the chiefs were to come down there and play or something, I might be like, now, go down there for a game. Haven’t been to a game in a while, and been down there. Tell me what it is, and from your perspective, from the state’s perspective, because I just know it to be different, but I haven’t visited it.
John Martin 18:15
It is a retail is a sports book as part of the stadium, so it means you can walk in. You don’t, Hey, you don’t have to even go to the game. You don’t have to have a ticket at the game. You can walk in with a separate entrance point to a standalone part of the physical stadium, and walk up to the sports book and then place your bet. Uh, obviously there’s another entrance. If you do are a ticket holder, you are at the game, and you want to still go to a retail sports book, you come in a different entrance to get in, and again, you can partake in that. And those are very rare. The facility in, I forget what they call them, right? They all have names, but the one out for the Arizona Cardinals is physically detached. It’s on the same parcel of land, but it’s detached from the stadium. I
Nestor Aparicio 19:08
would think like the Philadelphia situation where, like, there’s sports bars in the parking lot of where it is. And I’m only envisioning this as to what the Orioles are going to do and what ball what downtown can become. Because this is another, this is, this is going on in our state, but you have to go to a commander’s game maybe, or to be down on the DC beltway, although I drove past it, going to go into the casino, I haven’t seen it. And I just think it’s, it’s something that certainly we should talk about, because it’s also contributing to numbers here, as the commanders go and become this really going concern and a really good football team that’s going to increase numbers in the state. I would think the numbers you’re going to report to me,
John Martin 19:50
you would imagine that be the case. But again, in other venues around the country, as they look at refurbishing stadiums, building new state. Museums for their entities, and that goes across all segments, those relationships. I know the in Cleveland, the Cavaliers, have a or had, I don’t they still have it had a similar kind of thing where you could have a retail presence within the physical structure of the facility. But those are all things that are independent, jurisdictional decisions that are made. The league certainly dictates some of that as well. But it’s, yeah, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 20:30
happening right in Maryland? Yeah, yeah. John Martin is here. He’s executive director of all things at Maryland lottery and gaming. We put the crab cake tour out on the road with our partnership with the Maryland lottery. Have Raven scratch also we have so I’ll just throw to you. We’ve talked about the holiday scratch offs, different things that are going on. We’ve had a bunch of big winners. We had a big mega a couple of weeks ago, and changes coming to one of those games as well in the way you play. But what else is going on? Because we just had big numbers. Been a big sports week around here. And, you know, holidays coming. I got some eggnog right waiting for me right around the corner. Speaking of
John Martin 21:05
holidays, it is our annual. Thanks. Winning promotion. You can go to MD lottery.com to hear more about it. But for any that
Nestor Aparicio 21:13
promotion is not a turkey, is it?
21:17
Oh, I see what you did there. I’m
21:18
sorry, yeah,
21:19
yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 21:20
I’ve been talking about football around here. I’m a little loopy. I’m sorry. That’s alright. That’s alright. Been a crazy week for football and American elections. I’ve had two, two and one. It’s been, it’s been a lot of things. Been a lot of cheering going on here last a lot going on. A lot. When you start to talk thanksgiving to me like that’s a me, that’s something I can really get my arms around. So thanks winning and Thanksgiving, I’m into that’s no Turkey,
John Martin 21:44
yep. Thanks winning any draw game ticket you purchased through the month of November, you could win, on a random basis, a $2 or $5 instant win cash voucher or a free $1 best play ticket to our high low game, which is a progressive jackpot. And again, go to MD lottery.com to see how those progressive jackpots grow over time. And hopefully you’re lucky enough to win there. But anyway, the Ravens promotion continues, our Game of Thrones promotion continues, our holiday cash promotion, lots of different ways that players can engage their non winning lottery tickets. They’re unscented, non winning lottery tickets, and and put them in for for fabulous cash prices.
Nestor Aparicio 22:29
Who decides whether they’re sniffers for the holidays? I mean, is that it’s they fall on you? Yeah. I mean, say I feel like I’m looking around at the who’s the charge? You know, you’re the one that come on right here. Take a look at sheep skate. Take a look at it. Is it? Is it money? Is it printing? What? What is it? Come on,
22:51
why nose. And we’re getting dangerously close to,
Nestor Aparicio 22:57
you know, what? Next year, next year I’m coming in. We’re going to do fruit cake and eggnog. Sent the tickets for Oh
23:03
golly, yeah. Well, we’re cheap. We’re moving next year, maybe
Nestor Aparicio 23:07
cranberry. Man, Wait, I’m coming up with ideas here, trying to thanks winning it. John Martin is the executive director of all things Maryland, lottery gaming. He puts me out on the road with this Crazy Crab cake to we’ve also got the oyster tour in progress. I want to give some love to liberty, pure solutions, one 800 clean water. My man, Ray Bachman, has been checking in with me. He was on the oyster tour. He’s battling cancer. We’re loving him up and getting him through and ringing bells and doing good stuff. So hats off to Ray. Also our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter, putting us out 26 oysters, 26 days, 26 ways, and it’s all out on the front of Baltimore positive. We’ll check back in with John Martin next week. You know, at some point I want to get these people back from New York and find out if the cheesecake was New York cheesecake on the way back or whatnot. And I’ll start spreading the news about all that ravens on the road for a little bit here looks and Owings Mills, all that powered up our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care, a little extra time waiting for Pittsburgh. Little extra football here this week and the team on the road in San Diego or not, San Diego, Los Angeles, excuse me, two great defensive matchups. Luke and I have been breaking football down as well as anybody here into this rear time where we have extra downtime. But the football team, seven and three. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore, positive. You.
