There’s an enhanced version of Mega Millions, a bunch of new spring games of fun and Home Run Riches is bound to hit it big when the Orioles’ bat fall into form. Executive Director John Martin of The Maryland Lottery talk big hits and hitting Fast Play jackpots as spring action brings new games to life.
Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discussed the Maryland Lottery’s recent activities and promotions. They highlighted the $136,810 progressive jackpot won on the Home Run Riches game and the current $55,000 jackpot for the 2025 version. Martin explained the enhanced Mega Millions game, which now offers larger prizes and faster jackpot rollovers. He also mentioned the Second Chance program, where non-winning tickets can be entered for cash prizes, with a current rolling jackpot over $70,000. Additionally, they discussed various branded fast play tickets, including Scrabble and Willy Wonka, and shared stories of recent big winners.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Lottery, Fast Play, Progressive Jackpot, Home Run Riches, Mega Millions, Second Chance, Scratch Offs, Baltimore Positive, Orioles, Guardians, Scrabble Ticket, Willy Wonka, Bingo, Crossword, Community Chest.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 1, John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call this Baltimore positive. We call the Maryland crab cake tour, a lot of spring fun. On the Friday, we begin things at Costas. This week, I will have the remnants of the magic eight ball scratch offs to give away. I think Roz is working me up. So back to the futures. For the future. Um, speaking of the future, we will be at the Beaumont next Wednesday. We will be and that is in Catonsville. Of course. We will be at Coopers north in Timonium on the 23rd and then at Coco’s pub on the 30th. There’s a rumor we’re hitting red brick station in White Marsh at some point in May, as well as some other new locations. This guy is back in the old location. He took on a respite last week. I thought all those home runs in Toronto to start the season, six of them, my neck still kind of hurt from that. Then they come home and they hit some more. I thought John Martin was got to run around to pay all these home run riches guys. Then all of a sudden, the bats go a little cold, the pitching skin injured. And ah, John, how are you happy spring? The Guardians haven’t even gotten to Baltimore. That’s so next week.
John Martin 01:07
That is next week. That’s right, it’s early this year. But yeah, and those immortal worlds words, that’s, that’s baseball, that’s baseball. Ray, that’s what happens. So that’s
Nestor Aparicio 01:20
too much though it happened to eat. No, we need here’s something
John Martin 01:23
that doesn’t happen often. Okay, go ahead. Breaking news, we have a progressive jackpot winner on home run. Riches. Last year’s version, we had one dangling prize left of over, well over $100,000 and this morning, breaking news, I just have it right here, $136,810
Nestor Aparicio 01:45
how does that even happen? That it held over from last year? So that’s a thing, right? That’s the
John Martin 01:50
thing. That’s the thing. We’re going back to drawing board. Don’t know if I wanted to be a regular.
Nestor Aparicio 01:53
That money just sits there and just like all right, we’ll roll it into next year. We’ll just start
John Martin 01:58
people buying it. Okay? Fair enough. People keep buying the old ticket. So now that that ticket is gone, the Homer and riches base is loaded. $5 fast play ticket is now over a walk off. Win. Hey, 136 grand. Yeah, yeah, in fallston. Beautiful fallston, Maryland. I love when we keep it local. Keep it a community, yep, yep, yep, yep, so, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play Homer and riches walk off winner. Our current 2025, version, where the progressive jackpot this morning is a little bit north of $55,000 so that’ll that’ll grow until it’s won, and then it gets reset at $40,000 and it progresses throughout the season. So we’re a lot of fun with that. Yeah, we give away a little bit of money on opening day. But, you know, it’s kind of come back to normal. Unfortunately, we
Nestor Aparicio 02:46
need the other team to have lousy pitching, and we need better hitting. And I think that would be the guard Well, that would be the start of the season here. I was very worried about, you know, quite frankly, the sanctity of you in the Maryland lottery is not going broke with all those home runs at the beginning. I’m like they hit this many. I hope you’ve accounted for all that, but it kind of like it’s mellowed out a little bit. We’re in the baseball season. We get all sorts of things going on. We had a couple of huge jackpots. Two weeks ago. We got together. They both got hit kind of at the end of March, but the reset of the mega game is, you know, I see it everywhere we’re talking about, I know some ads support that you brought it up with me. My goodness, it feels like maybe Christmas, or even at the end of last year. We sort of knew this was happening. I think April 5 was the kickoff, and the games change. And my wife needs to know about this, because she plays jackpots
John Martin 03:34
the I think people will eventually warm up to it. It’s a an enhanced game. It still plays the same the same basic games, but we’ve tweaked some things in the back background. We’ve adjusted some of the the probabilities, the odds, so that it comes back a little bit so more people can win, larger prices, faster more money, larger jackpots, faster wins, and that’s really what we’re counting on. So give you some reference point, because everyone chases the zillion dollar jackpot, but it trickles down. So for instance, last week, we’ll say it that way. The the old game, if you match the Mega Ball, if the only thing you match was the Mega Ball, you won $2 now in the new game, you win $10
Nestor Aparicio 04:20
Yeah? Two doesn’t feel like Yeah. Two doesn’t feel like I won. It just feels like, yeah, the foul tip. I mean, it’s a nice thought to give me my two bucks back, but yeah, yep.
John Martin 04:31
So then we’ve incremented all those price tiers as we call them, up to the jackpot. So I’ll give you old and new old game. I’d said you won two bucks. Now you win 10. If you win one ball, plus the Mega Ball, used to be $4 now 14 and it cascades throughout, used to be 10 at the next level. Now 20 used to be 200 now 400 used to be 500 now 1000 so you see, we’re going there, and those are minimums because. Each and every play you have as a random multiplier, 2345, or 10 times. So that’s just a two times win. If you happen lucky enough to have a 10 times multiplier and used to win $10 you’re not going to win $100 and of course, the price of the ticket went up from two to five. But in that raise in the ticket price, we’re now able to offer larger prizes all up and down the price tier, and those jackpots will roll quicker than they used to. Right now, we’re in the the low 70s as we speak, but again, each and every time that will increment if there’s not a winner and looking really looking forward to that very, first $5 Mega Millions jackpot win, hopefully in the future, hopefully in Maryland, and boy, we’ll have some fun. Then, won’t we? Well, I would just
Nestor Aparicio 05:47
say, like, I have the monopolies here, and I have the whole series of tickets here, and anytime you step up, I, you know, when I was a kid, I didn’t know why this one’s $1 or five, but it’s a math issue that if you get the $20 monopoly ticket, as opposed to the five, you can stand to win a bigger prize. That’s that’s the concept, right? I know I’m speaking just at a 100 level here, but you know, when people say, How does it go from two to five? It is not dissimilar to the premise of, we’re trying to win more money and make it more palatable than winning two bucks, which I just said, It’s nice of you and all, but it sounds better when I went 10 or 20, even when I went 10 bucks, when people win 10 bucks, when I give out these magic eight balls, I hope they will do on Friday with the lucky badge of Costas. People get excited. They can do something with 10 bucks. You
John Martin 06:37
know, you mentioned monopoly tickets, and thank you for that segue. Even if you have a non winning ticket. Nestor, even if you don’t win a cash prize, we encourage people to take those non winning tickets. Go to the My lottery rewards part of our website. If you’re not a member, you can certainly enroll. And we have Second Chance prizes, and our monopoly tickets contribute now to a second chance price, and once again, we have a rolling cash jackpot right now. As we speak, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 07:05
community chest I gotta add. No, no, all right, well, I don’t send me to jail, just don’t send me jail. Yep, I don’t send me the electric bill right this month either. But that’s another story altogether.
Speaker 1 07:16
So, no, no, no, no. That’s, that’s, could be a good old topicality in here. You know it’s, we know
John Martin 07:22
each, each city back in, back in the day, right? This was about 2030, years ago. Each city would brand their own Monopoly board horse. So that was always a lot of fun. That’s a nice reset there on the brand replace
Nestor Aparicio 07:36
was like the boardwalk. I bet I’m just saying, I’m gonna have to look the game up. Now, you got me, you got me. Thinking about it. Everybody loves monopoly. So there’s a big there’s a community chest. Is where I interrupted you of this jackpot that’s rolling. You
John Martin 07:50
go to MD lottery.com to get all the details. But we have various cash prices and entry deadlines because we we select Second Chance winners on a regular basis. Our next drawing, as we speak, is next month, in the first week of May, where we provide a another rolling cash jackpot winner. Back in March, our first rolling cash jackpot winner of over $130,000 and right now, we’re on pace to to get close to that, we’re over $70,000 now, so that’s part of the fun too. Is even if it’s not initially a non winning ticket, you can get some second chance, uh, prices out of it, and particularly cash, all right. So before I
Nestor Aparicio 08:31
we can do back to the future if you want. I called it back to school last week, and we had triple Lindy jokes here and whatnot. But before I even get to that, I went out to the website, because I do go to MD lottery.com each and every week when I bring John Martin or Seth Elkin on and I know John will be ducking me next week if the guardians are going bad in the Orioles, figure out their pitching. But you know, I saw this fast play thing, and it kind of caught my attention, because y’all are smart with your branding things and making me recognize things like movies like Back to the Future, but I didn’t realize on the fast play that you have a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But more than that, and this, I like to think of myself as a writer and a wordsmith. You know, when I my right Scrabble. Scrabble is like one of my all time favorite games. My wife plays the Wordle thing online every play little five letter thing. But like Scrabble, my wife’s never played Scrabble. I’ve convinced her she’d be a great Scrabble player, but you have some cool branded things that like Scrabble gets my attention when I’m at cost this Friday to throw a couple bucks down because I like word games.
John Martin 09:33
We can. We do have some fun with that. Thank you for noticing. Ben again, the flash fast play ticket. For those people who aren’t as familiar, you know, they know what a scratch ticket is. You buy the ticket that’s on a little piece of cardboard. It’s very colorful. You’ve got examples from there. And you take a little coin or scratch or something, and the schmutz, the schmutz flies, sure, hopefully you win a cash prize. Fast play is the same concept, same play style, but without the. The gray schmutz without the figure. What is it
Nestor Aparicio 10:03
really called in the industry, for the people who print it, what do they call that silver coating? I don’t know what.
John Martin 10:11
What is the corner for it? They call the silver coating?
Nestor Aparicio 10:16
Okay, fair enough. Okay, that’s industry. I’m sorry. So
John Martin 10:19
without, without that, you still have the play style of, you know, whether it’s matching your number or, like in Scrabble, you know, have some letters and make a word. So, yeah, those are fun. We pride ourselves in, in sitting down and coming up with ideas. We also liberally borrow, I’ll use that term, borrow ideas from other states and jurisdictions around the great land who have done similar things. But yeah, we have a Willy Wonka ticket. We have a roulette ticket, scrabble ticket. Of course, we have monopoly tickets on fast play, the home run riches we’ve talked about. So yeah, we have a lot of fun throughout the season. We go to MD, lottery.com, and check out the fast play and various price points. If you’d like to put a buck or two on it. Great. If you want to move out the price point ladder and spend a little bit more and get a potentially higher payout a higher price, you can do that as well.
Nestor Aparicio 11:07
John Martin is the executive director of all things Maryland, lottery and gaming. He joins us mainly every week, but he did skip out on me last week, and since last time we got together. So I told this story to set last week, and I want to tell it to you and let you expand, because I just did something that a young lady at the bar spoke to me about in Toronto. I was sitting in Toronto having a drink, and I got to talking a Canadian young lady next to me about games and sports wagering and gambling and watching games and whatnot, and the availability of games, and she said to me, just without knowing anything about you and me or like, the thing I do for the Maryland lottery, not even knowing what I do for a living, she’s like, I like playing scratch off lottery tickets better than sports wagering. And you know why? Because I like to play the game. I actually learn the game, and I play the game, and it’s fun for me to play the game. And I said to her, well, a lot of times I get these out, like, it will cost us, or will it Cocos? And people go say, How do I play the game? And have to figure it out when a Scrabble thing happens, like, when that’s the game for me, that brings me into saying, all right, I want to learn how to play the game. Because you don’t have to learn how to play. You can just, you can you can just get your download MD lottery, download the app. You have your little scanner, and you could say winner, and you get balloons or non winning ticket, enter into second chances. But people playing the games, and the fun of the games, and sometimes it’s sort of lost on me, until I talk to someone trying to figure the games out, when I give the tickets away and say that really is the fun. That’s part of the adventure of trying to win, is I would be attracted to scrabble because I like putting words together. Yeah, a lot
John Martin 12:47
a lot of people enjoy the the the entertainment value of the game. So we have a very strong population that plays crossword And bingo, because they tend to be a longer play experience bingo. Matter of fact, we have the unique distinction. We have the best bingo scratch off sales in the country. And I think a lot of that is the roots.
Nestor Aparicio 13:06
We’re a bingo state. I mean, you know, absolutely, my wife actually was sitting with me at Costas couple weeks ago, and someone came in and talked about having gone to bingo the night before. And my wife’s like, can you do bingo around here? I’m like, You’re in Dundalk. You’re like, Come on, we can hear the this is a bingo state. Is not like, there’s any question about that, right? Yep, yep, no. That doesn’t shock me that you would say that. But people, I mean, bingo is a great long form, and I see this about eating ice cream cones. I get ice cream cones because I get to eat it for 12 minutes, instead of, like, cookies or pie that I inhale. So people do feel that way about their gaming. And I think that goes without saying, but you got me interested in this. I’m going to play the Scrabble game and come back and report to you next week on
John Martin 13:49
how I do and and again, people like I say, enjoy bingo. They enjoy crosswords. You know why they really enjoy that Nestor? Because every once in a while at bingo and crosswords, they can win significant prizes. MD, lottery.com, or winners stories. I got a couple. I just need to share with you one. Alright, go ahead. These are the happy stories. A montgomery county man bought a bonus bingo times 20, scratch off ticket, and, you know, pays for his groceries or his convenience store items, has some money left in his wallet. Says, Okay, I’m gonna buy this ticket. Not necessarily a big fan of the game or the ticket. He scratches the ticket, realizes, hmm, this looks interesting. Borrows an app from a family member and scans it and sees it, yes. In fact, he has won $500,000
Nestor Aparicio 14:36
what I thought you were saying, $500
John Martin 14:38
$100,000 and being the the wonderful guy that he is, he immediately thinks about, my goodness, I’m going to buy a home for my mother. Isn’t that a sweet story? You
Nestor Aparicio 14:55
know, I was seeing it, B, I N, G O. B, I N, G O, you’re the. It was his name. Oh, right.
John Martin 15:01
And here’s where the theme comes in. Okay, so you guys gonna buy it for his mother? I have another mother son story in Nottingham. You talk about Dundalk being the
Nestor Aparicio 15:10
episode not I lived in Nottingham, and there ain’t no Nottingham. There’s just a there’s just a post. It’s White Marsh.
John Martin 15:18
Well, all right, be that or Perry
Nestor Aparicio 15:20
Hall, you know, but that is it. May
John Martin 15:24
mother and son are doing a little maneuvering there in the house, moving some furniture around, you know, doing some some spring cleaning. And they moved the couch and realized that there are five holiday scratch off tickets behind the couch. You know, in the mayhem, Christmas morning, they came across a five brand new
Nestor Aparicio 15:49
holiday tickets. So I don’t believe this story, but go so mom more. So mom
John Martin 15:53
says to the Son, go ahead, scratch em. We’ll split. We’ll split, whatever it’s there. So Scratch is off the first ticket, it’s six bucks, scratch. Second ticket, 15 bucks, couple non winners. Last ticket, bam, $50,000
Nestor Aparicio 16:13
and it’s not even Christmas. Well, it is now. It is now. I was going to say so
John Martin 16:18
I it’s undetermined if they actually found any fruitcake or cheese balls. Hold on a minute. Executive
Nestor Aparicio 16:23
Director of the Maryland lottery, and we get together every couple months, yes, and you’re like, looking for some body out there that might be holding on to their ticket, discussing it with financial advisors, or they just might be some jack wagon that left their ticket in the back of a couch, like, like, the story of it being in the jacket pocket in the spring or the winter or underneath the seat in the car. Like you’ve been in the lottery business, you’ve heard them all, but like, this isn’t even crazy that five scratch off tickets were just sitting there in the couch because of the mayhem of the holidays.
8John Martin 16:57
Yep, yep. So you can see their photo behind a big check that says we’ll split it. And then it’s their $50,000 holiday luck doubler ticket a boy and his mother. So I
Nestor Aparicio 17:09
would go to the beach with that money, and I would spend it on something fun. That’s what I’m well,
John Martin 17:13
here we are in the spring. Of course, Mother’s Day is right around the corner. I just think you know that the a boy’s best friend is his mother. And if that rings true to you, that is the Norman Bates and the movie psycho.
Nestor Aparicio 17:27
It’s almost Mother’s Day. I was looking at that. I’m like, well, it’s coming up a couple weeks from now,
John Martin 17:31
coming up in May, coming up in May so and actually, next week, I will not be here. I will be with my mother in sunny Florida, so watching
Nestor Aparicio 17:39
the Guardians in the Orioles, without question. And, you know, probably rooting against the Orioles because they’re costing you a lot of money every time they hit home runs in the walls out. John Martin is here. He’s the Executive Director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming. He’s got winter stories. We’ve got jackpots in all sorts of ways. Got a new Mega Millions game. And listen, I’ll table the Back to the Future thing and the DeLorean thing with you. Two weeks from now, we’ll reconvene. We’ll split up the pot on this whole guardians Orioles mayhem we have next week. Hey, I’m just worried about the season going off. You know, off the rails. You’re like, we need more pitching here. As a guy who’s done this for 34 years now, Oriole baseball, it’s more fun when they win. It really is more fun when they win. For me.
John Martin 18:23
You know, we’ve said this before, the intertwining of Baltimore and Cleveland is well documented, but I think if you look at them right now, they are the same team, split in two different cities. Can
Nestor Aparicio 18:34
we put them together and get one winner? I’m just asking. We tried that back in 95 and it didn’t go so well for you guys. So have a great week. It’s good to see you. I promise not to harass that too much next week in your absence, when the Guardians come to town here and we renew the Baltimore, Cleveland, Baltimore and Ohio, we shared a railroad at one point. We can all get along here, you know. So I appreciate that, and thanks for the words on the Mega Millions. But back to the future is the new game. I want to make sure we’re talking about that as well. I will have the magic eight balls. What is remaining? And this has been a really lucky batch. We’ve had a lot of winners. I have a handful left. We’re going to be a Costas, and then we’re back out on the road. Beaumont, next Wednesday, will be at Coopers on the 23rd and then the 30th of the month of Cocos. I’m looking forward. The 30th Senator McCray is going to be joining me and Jamie Costello. First time since his retirement, he’s not retired. He’s costelloing stories on Mark Viviano joined me last week at fadley. So it’s been a great, great week around here for a lot of content, lots of things going on. We have an NFL draft ahead. We have Luke at the ballpark. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
