We’re watching the Orioles and Home Run Riches pulling for a grand slam every night but the big one continues to get bigger. John Martin of Maryland Lottery talks billions and millions for Maryland dreamers and some big local winners as well.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lottery, ticket, maryland, win, homerun, run, day, john, anonymous, working, weeks, orioles, pac man, money, student athletes, costas, gambling, scratch offs, pacman, cash
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home, we are wn St. Towson Baltimore am 1570 and our Baltimore positive compadres out on the web. We’re Luke Jones has been writing I’ve been writing feverishly putting together the 25th documentary. We’ve done been doing this a long time. 40 years immediate 25 years of this, lots of pictures, lots of video. Lots of stuff that has, you know, made me well up in the aftermath of losing the Key Bridge. We are a lot of people were doing like Key Bridge gatherings and I saw the folks that keep rowing and the folks at Tiki Lee’s I don’t want to say that this is a Key Bridge gathering gather your get together in any sort of relief way other than I still can’t look in that direction because it’s breaking me a little bit but we’re going to be a Costas kicking off the Maryland crabcake tour I’m gonna have 10 times the cash but I’m working on a PacMan scratch offs as well from Ross over to Maryland lottery. We are going to be getting together at Costas on the night before two o’clock can’t say might start 910 In the morning, but we’re gonna be there come have a crab cake. Two o’clock. I stopped working the baseball game comes on Oreos be in first place by then and we’ll be I’ll be sitting next to the lottery machine on the bar side probably having a crab cake and some Oysters Rockefeller and probably some crab appear because I want to feel royal that’s on the ninth 12th We’re beat families from two until five again on the 26th and then we’re at Coco’s now on the 18th Marcel is like you got to get in here before mortgage State graduates man a mortgage state graduation crazy. So get over to Laura Ville on the 18th I’ll be there too until five as well. This guy runs all things at Maryland lottery and gaming. We are into April where the baseball season the march man is kind of dying down and but more than anything we these this jackpots, the last couple of weeks have been extraordinary. My wife gets all worked up every time we go past the world farmer wise March got to run and get tickets. She did it the other night. She has won. John Martin. She has won twice. On the Mega Millions first now Powerball she won $2.02 Saturdays ago. And the other day she won $4. And as my wife would do, she has let that $6 ride because she’s feeling this billion dollar thing. And she wanted me to pass that along to you, John Mark. Well, Nestor
8
John Martin 02:14
that is conferring a number of fronts. Number one, a $2 win to a $4 win. That means her trend is 100% growth.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:22
I like that. So we’re up for eight bucks this week. I like it. That’s good. Yes. So
John Martin 02:26
that’s a positive direction. And it sounds like she was playing responsibly. So that’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:30
8that is playing responsibly. Trust me, you know that. It’s just MTS. I mean, she just has fun with us. It gives us something to talk about. It’s like Wordle, but it cost a couple bucks. And we can win a billion like and I say what a billion. I’m like, what a billion. It’s like a billion, you know, like, the Orioles just got sold for 1.7 billion a lot of money. And that’s good. I get settled with and like set sent me an email here on this. My cash out option would only be 527. Point 3 million I can live on that. I could do Okay, on that. That’s a lot
John Martin 02:58
of people would a lot of people would you know what, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about how many millionaires we had in the state of Maryland on an annual basis. And if you recall correctly, because I don’t 37 we I think was 37. It was 30 something last year, and we’re on we at that time, we’re on a trend to maybe equal it. Well, the last couple of weeks, we’ve had millionaires coming out, left and right. So matter of fact, this last straw, which would have been, as we speak would have been earlier this week, we had one individual, we assume because they’ve not come forward yet. Who may have had to winning million dollar tickets. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:35
yeah, hold on. I have to ask the hard question. So when you’re telling me a guy told me to $1 million tickets, I’d be like, Hmm, it can
John Martin 03:44
happen. And it can happen very simply. Sometimes someone will have their favorite numbers, right, whether it’s birthdays or anniversaries, or whatever way they’ve concocted they’re, they’re lucky numbers. And II need that Powerball number. And maybe they want to pick the same base five numbers. And they want to give themselves a couple of options. So they pick one number for Powerball on ticket A, and they pick a second number for Powerball on option B, which may have happened here, because they’ve got the five of five, which is what we call a tier two winner. They didn’t get all six numbers, he had the first five, and that’s a million dollar prize. And if he’s got two tickets, even I can do that math. That means he may have won $2 million. But until he comes forward, he or she until the winner comes forward and tells their story to us. We really won’t know but it’s fun to think about that possibility it can happen it has happened before. And I daresay it will happen again. What
8Nestor J. Aparicio 04:40
happened to Royal farms like two weeks ago, right here in the test area. But this is a 711 and an app and then one minute you get a Slurpee next minute, you get 2 million bucks. John Martin is here. He’s the Executive Director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming. And, you know, for the billion dollar thing that happens here the activate I should have all that break the math down just for my wife because we don’t get this often. For you to say this is the cash in and the federal and the state. And here is the question my wife asked. This is honestly God, we pulled out of the Royal farms. We got some chicken. I got a two piece actually got that on my point I turn 50 points, Roy farms. So I ended up going and I went up the Western fries were fresh, were delicious. So we’re driving up Providence road. And she said to me, I want you to ask John Martin this. In this state in Maryland. If I win all of this money, if I went 527 million in cash, I take the cash option. I’m in I’m in the papers. I’m on Nesta show and Baltimore positive. WP Al and Mariela empty lottery like all that stuff. I want all of this money. I don’t that yeah, I gotta have safety I have to do. What could I be anonymous? This was my wife’s question to John Martin. Can she remain anonymous? If she is she wasn’t the winner last week. I already made it you want to win for but this week, let’s say steps up. She wants 527 million in cash and 1.0 million. Can she be Lucy Liu from Linthicum?
John Martin 06:10
You know that? Anonymity went out the door the minute she married you? I mean, let’s let’s face it. I mean, she she she can’t be anonymous. She is Hold on. She
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:18
said she just came in and she wants to hear the answer. Now. She’s waving at me. She’s in the studio. Seriously. She’s way she you have to there she has saved Jen. Inquiry. Real lottery customers want to know, she’s
John Martin 06:31
8gone. She’s gone just like that a vision in and out. Yeah, the reality is Maryland is about one of I think maybe it’s now 12 1314 states, I don’t keep track of these things. But you can claim the prize, anonymously. And when you do you have to recognize that if you take at 1.0 9 billion, or whatever the number happens to be when you win the cash option, which as you correctly identified $527.3 million, then there’s some taxes that have to be paid to the feds and the state and, you know, so on and so forth. But yeah, that nice little sum can be yours, anonymously. And that’s the way the game is played here in Maryland. Okay, so.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:20
And if it really hit you make me smile when you’re talking about it, because I like it’s the exact opposite of the Cambridge I can’t think about, but like, this is the opposite of like, the most awesome thing ever, that if you when you smile, and you’re like, what I remained anonymous, or what I not. And I know in the annals of lottery history, because, you know, I visited the buddy wriggle room, but he would go I sat in the studio at wn St. Or more than one occasion. 30 years ago, I remember a guy named bunkie, who won from Parkville, who was on the news. And when anyone a lot of I don’t remember how many millions it was it was a lot of money, like life altering kind of money. What’s the percentages? And when something like that mean? And with your wisdom? Do you have any wisdom to impart? I don’t make it a total Vince McMahon shoot wrestling backstage interview. But would you give anybody any recommendation on that if they call other than get financial help? I know you always say that. But this the notion that you can remain anonymous is an interesting thing. And it’s really one of the things my wife said, like, would my life really be better? If I weren’t, you know, like security and all of that? It would be really be something to think about, if you want on a really serious note, it would be something to really consider?
John Martin 08:28
Well, sure it is. And first and foremost, you’re right, the the securing of the ticket making sure that it’s properly signed on the back by the the individual who is claiming the ticket.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:41
And that’s no matter how much you win, right? Let’s go device. Right, right. And you can
8John Martin 08:45
go to Mt. lottery.com. And see various winners stories from people who win, you know, a few $1,000 all the way up to hundreds of millions of dollars. And some of them opt to have their picture taken and their story shared and their name, shared. Others opt to put on a funny hat and a feather boa and hide behind a check and develop a persona and a name that is not their own for just for for fun. So we have people all over the map on that. But first and foremost, secure the ticket. You have 182 days here in the state of Maryland, get the financial planning and the support you need from people who can manage that, that wealth with you and for you. And then ultimately you make the decision whether you want to attach your name and face to it or not. I can’t counsel any one person one way or the other. But if you’ve done your homework, taken some time secure. I mean, you know that better than I do these news cycles change in a minute. And the minute the news is that someone won. Five seconds later the run to the next news story.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:51
It would be a big deal here. John, come on. Now, if somebody in Timonium wins a billion dollars tonight, here in this state, it would be a A two or three day local story here really, it would be something very fascinated with that.
John Martin 10:05
Of course it was and you know what, just as a tease, I’ve got I bought a new suit over the weekend, just in case, just in case, you know, spring
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:12
8you need a new suit anyway. Yes,
John Martin 10:14
it’s one of these days I’ll wear it. It’s not what I’m wearing today. But but one of these days a word and you’ll say, Wow, that’s a suit that belongs next to a person who’s won a lot of money. Well, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:26
hear that John Martin is the executive director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming. We reminded everybody last month to play responsibly. And I keep saying that with you know, just don’t my timeline, seeing people sharing what they’re sharing and obviously the gambling part of sports and Otani and the news and all that but I do want to talk to baseball. I serendipitously I had Greg Abel from able communications on a rant a little long. I had my Oriole jersey on, we were talking about new ownership and fresh start and the seasons on his first time I’ve talked to you since there’s been baseball, you got homerun riches and where I’m hearing it every night and we haven’t enough homeruns last day or two but you’re in a lot first couple days and pitch pretty well as well. Whether it’s been a little foul and weird, whatever, but I know the Clevelander in you and the old school. Guardians fan. I can’t say the other words anymore. But old school Cleveland baseball the Joe Charbonneau and you you know the Ric Vaughn, in here, Ricky, the you know the old Indians in you. You love baseball. I love baseball. And I guess at some point, maybe we’ll go to a game together and enjoy or whatnot. But there is a different vibe about all of it in the last week or two Cal Ripken on the field, do ownership, all that and you got a game and I hope they’re not going to move the fences in anytime soon. But I hope we get a lot of homeruns here for you guys.
John Martin 11:43
As we record this, we have six Orioles homeruns for the season, people who are choosing to play in our home run Rich’s contestant of The Game contest know that if they’re selected as contests of the game, they automatically win $500 They get $500 for every Orioles homerun hit this year. And should they will they when they hit a grand slam right now, zero on the grand salami scale. But that’s going to change when a Grand Slam is hit that lucky winner contest in the game $5,000. But there’s more than just a second chance contest. There is an actual Homer virtuous fast play game where the progressive jackpot, which starts at $40,000 is now up to well over $68,000. So if you play responsibly and play a $5, homerun riches Bases Loaded ticket and you happen to win, you will win that progressive jackpot. And each and every ticket along the way contributes a couple of coins into that pot. So that’s that’s a lot of fun to watch that as well.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 12:47
Well, I mean, baseball going on and the sort of the heartbeat of all of this stuff and hitting home runs and you got anything you want to say about the birds here and just
John Martin 13:00
I have two words for you write these down, because we may refer to them later in the year. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, here are the two words, Shane Bieber.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:10
Is he related to Justin Bieber? No,
John Martin 13:12
8but he is probably heading out of Cleveland, and maybe heading into a ballpark. close to you.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:21
Oh, listen to that here. You know, you. There’s inside information coming from John Mark. Now the baseball season for me. And I guess the whole heartbeat of all of it. You know, I started digging around here. And I think for all the years of waiting for sort of the team to be this good. It’s wonderful to go around town and everywhere I go had people like talk about the roster and the pictures and the money and the ownership and the investment and all that stuff. That’s just a beautiful thing. So I just wanted to throw that in there.
John Martin 13:50
It’s not unlike the feeling we talked about when you see that that billion dollar jackpot sign in the window for a for Powerball. It’s that same sense of the potential, the future, right, everybody’s in first place on opening day. And, and everyone’s enthusiastic. And everyone points to stories that maybe are out of the norm. And maybe this is the year and hope they get off to a great start. And then you hope it continues and all of a sudden it’s July. It’s the all star break and maybe it still looks good. And then the dog days of summer and then it gets to be a little tight and you hope your team’s in it all through the season. And that’s the promise of it. That’s the future. That’s excitement.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:31
I got two words for you. Corbin burns.
8John Martin 14:35
You know, I loved him in Major League.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:37
Oh, that’s no, no, that was Roger Doran. We got the wrong guy there. I think John Martin, Executive Director, Mayor lottery and gaming as well. Let’s talk about Pac Man a little because I don’t have the tickets. I got to come down and visit Ross before I get the Costas on Tuesday. And then on Friday, we’re gonna be at fade these and they’re always very popular families, scratch offs and things going on with scratch offs and also You know, you got progressives and all sorts of ways. And when I make cost this, I see the full rittany Or when I’m a drug city, where you have really good lottery vendors that have tons of scratches, it is amazing, the amazing different kinds of colors and games and, and really the offerings, but better odds in some ways. If you study some of the games to
John Martin 15:18
Pac Man is a lot of fun for a lot of reasons it resonates with people of a certain generation. It gives them pause, think back on of when they played the video arcade game. And many, many lotteries when the country have dabbled with a scratch off ticket. And we’re fortunate to have a $2 PacMan scratch off ticket where the top prize on the ticket is $10,000 If you’re lucky enough to win that. But as in many of our games, we have Second Chance contests. So if you have a non winning ticket, you can enter it into your My lottery rewards account. And throughout the spring and I don’t have the date here in front of me but at a date that is available in MD lottery.com. We will pick from non winning tickets. A lucky winner who will win their own Pac Man home arcade machine. Big one. Yes, the party will be at your place.
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:14
8Yeah, I hope the joystick doesn’t stick because I mean that it gets you caught when the joystick, the joystick. I’m telling you I’ve played bad. I played a lot of Pac Man as a kid. Like I am the guy you’re talking to who not got addicted to PAC. It’s true. 19 8001 like no one ever surprised. I was never really Space Invaders or glad Agha and I mean other people played those games but Pac Man and Donkey Kong and then BurgerTime though that was the order of my little Mrs. Pacman in there as well. I like when they had to seated version they had like the the little cocktail glass gaming of all that stuff. So I’m a Pac Man guy, I can talk back man all day. You know, I was gonna go back to home run riches for you. Because last year, you had so much fun with the the 50th anniversary, and it was that 50th Home run site. This is free marketing advice from a guy who’s celebrating 25 And we’re trying to figure out how to do 26 You could have done 51st For like 51 bajillion dollars or something like that. I’m just saying,
John Martin 17:16
Well, yeah, we could have or we could have opted for $5,000. For every oriels Grand Slam makes makes each game that exciting. Make sure what the bases is what makes you want to do. And as we talked last time, six, six is the number last year there were six grand slams hit by the O’s last year. So that means six lucky people have a chance to win $5,000 That’s nothing to sneeze at. My
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:40
we have we’re gonna base runners, we’re gonna have the bases loaded. We’re gonna have lots of opportunities with this lineup once the weather gets a little warmer, to have some fun. John, if I missed anything else, I know we did a lot of Gambling Awareness last month on the and boy sports and gambling been in the news big time. I mean, almost every day. I mean, I saw a piece the other day of players getting yelled at in the NBA. Yeah, there’s just, I would say unintended consequences was always sort of a civic concern about all of this, right? You know
John Martin 18:08
what, and this, pardon me for the shameless self promotion on this, but But you kind of opened the door. So I’ve got to go through that, you know, with with the fact that we are coming out of Problem Gambling Awareness month in March, and we are wrapping up the NCAA tournament. There’s been quite a lot of news over these last several weeks, about the unfortunate situations where some of the student athletes are really put in tough positions. And they’re put in tough positions because of things called prop bets Proposition bets, that such and such an athlete is going to score X number of points, grab so many rebounds, whatever the metrics are, and especially on a college campus, I don’t care if it’s Division One, two, or three, that puts a lot of pressure on these athletes to perform in a game. And maybe it doesn’t go their way. And they’re sitting then in the English class the next day next to a guy who just lost a little bit of money, because you didn’t make the free throw. And we examine what the ramifications are of that and we took very aggressive stance, we followed very quickly Ohio’s lead in in eliminating prop bets from college athletics. And we were very quick to do that. We did it right before the NCAA tournament started. Vermont has also done that a lot of other states are in taking their time. To me, this was another take your time issue. We saw the opportunity. We saw the harm. And we’re worked very quickly to do that. And it’s noticed, I’m sitting here a letter from Charlie Baker if you don’t know Charlie Baker is He’s the president of the NCAA. And Charlie has been very vocal about protecting student athletes. And he took the time out of his busy day to acknowledge the work we did here, sent me a personal letter and thanked us for being in the forefront and leading that charge to really protect student athletes and the integrity of sports wagering, I’m very proud of what our people did. And our staff did to be quick to market on this. And I look forward to working with Charlie down the road, see what we can do to make this a stronger, safer experience for all people?
8Nestor J. Aparicio 20:14
Well, you know, I’m glad I did bring it up, because I saw that in the news a couple of weeks ago, and it kind of came and went for me. And, you know, we’re partners with Coppin State, I’m very close to the folks over here at Towson, and, and you know, the coaches over all of these years, going back to Terry Truax, at Towson, 30 years ago, he’s gonna wind up in my 25th anniversary documentary now that I brought his name up, because I love them so much, I gotta make sure he gets in there. But thinking about student and how different but the same 1819 and 20 year old kids would be today versus when we were 20 year old kids, given social media given gambling, given the the what sports has become on TV, and the the access to all of it. It’s something I don’t know that I thought a lot about, right, like a year or two or three ago, and the fact that it’s happened quickly, and we’ve gotten to it, you know, pro sports has its own issues. But certainly from this level, when I went over to carpet, and I saw Angel Reese play over there, back in, in In December, she came into play to compensate, I went over his beautiful night that the guys played. I’ve been over there for a bunch of games from Morgan games and whatnot. But just seeing these young student athletes and put myself in a position of saying, oh, you know, they they look like older people, but they’re 18 years old, just because they’re six foot seven. And you’re thinking like, this isn’t good for them. They’re trying to get an education and trying to enjoy sports, right? I mean, that the enjoyment level of being an athlete at that point, and, you know, this is one thing that one pressure that I’m glad you took off of them. I just want to say that out loud to Well, thank you
John Martin 21:47
for that. And again, we look forward to continuing to make a better product for all people who choose to engage in sports wagering, and this was an important step we took, I don’t doubt that other other states will follow along. In the not too distant future. My
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:02
man John Martin, he’s executive director of all things Maryland lottery and gaming, you can find everything you need an MD lottery.com To learn about games, learn about odds, learn about winners, and certainly learn about second chances because you’re playing. There’s a lot of ways to win and my wife knows about all this stuff. That’s how she got the two bucks in the four bucks and learn all about that at M D lottery.com. We’re gonna take the Maryland crabcake tour out on the road will be cost us on Tuesday the knife at fade these on the 12 Coco’s the 18th and then back at Faith is on the 26th whenever the Orioles are home on Fridays, we’re gonna be live from the new family’s new, it’s awesome. It’s block closer to the ballpark. I parked in the same spot on opening day was fantastic and worth the weight as well. So I’m brought to you by the Maryland lottery and our friends at Liberty pure solutions keeping my water clean and fresh and my engine running. I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stop talking Baltimore positive
