With baseball season ready to pitch into the fun, John Martin of RThe Maryland Lottery gets Nestor ready for Home Run Riches and 162 games where local folks will be swinging for the fences and hoping for more grand slams.
Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discussed various topics, including the Maryland Lottery’s initiatives for March Madness, baseball season, and responsible gaming. They highlighted the importance of Problem Gambling Awareness Month and emphasized the message of playing responsibly. John mentioned the current Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots, which are over $350 million and $270 million, respectively. They also talked about the Home Run Riches promotion, which offers $5 tickets with a chance to win $500 or $5,000 per home run during Orioles games. Additionally, they noted the significant tax revenue from sports wagering, with February generating over $6.3 million, surpassing last year’s total of $60.3 million.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
March Madness, Maryland Lottery, Problem Gambling Awareness, Home Run Riches, baseball season, Powerball, Mega Millions, sports wagering, responsible gaming, Maryland crab cake tour, Baltimore, Orioles, Monopoly Second Chance, Bradshaw Maryland, community outreach.
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore. Positive. I like seeing Towson. I wish I were seeing more Towson and tigers in March Madness. Unfortunately, there was a defeat on the basketball court earlier in the week at the hands of lowly Delaware. But we will still be going to the CVP this week. We’re gonna be a Towson at the CVP on Friday, doing the Maryland crab cake tour. They have a delicious crab cake there. I did have the nachos there over the weekend, as well as the omelet for the noon tip off. But it’s March Madness time, and the match eight ball will be with me on Friday, next Friday, and there will actually be basketball being played. Will be a pizza Johns in Essex. And I always quiz people who aren’t from Dundalk or Essex or like rays Dale or Middle River if they know about pizza Johns. I may do that with John Martin momentarily, but I am bringing Dave, shining, longtime baseball and Olympics reporter for The Washington Post, out to talk a little baseball. He had a great piece last week about analytics in the game and different things going on there. So that is the 21st and then later on in the month, we’re going to be, actually beginning of April, we’re going to be back at fadelies To kick off baseball season. This guy is a baseball fan. He can’t wait. I can’t wait. I can’t wait so much. And I’m going to Toronto for opening day. John Martin, Executive Director of all things Marilyn lottery and gaming, who stumped me last week with a pop quiz. And I saw what you did there. Tricky. John Martin, because I’ve heard the ads right here at W, N, S, D, that it’s Gambling Awareness Month. You tricked me on one of those six questions last week. So you’re making me think, think, think, how are you happy? March Madness to you this week, right? Like it’s basketball, it’s hockey. We got a veteran, we got baseball, we got free agency. It’s springtime here, is it not?
John Martin 01:47
It is lovely springtime weather here in the mid Atlantic, and we look forward to, yeah, all good things coming up. You’re right. We’ve got March is a very busy month, as you already correctly identified. It is Problem Gambling Awareness Month, and we continue to be strong proponents of of that and all that we do on the lottery side, casino gaming and sports wagering front. So for all the details, check us out at MD lottery com, or consult with Nestor Aparicio for all things Problem Gambling Awareness.
Nestor Aparicio 02:18
Okay, so while we’re on that topic, because we do talk, we talk about this a lot. What is your number one? This is a really good question for you. What’s your number one message this, there’s a there’s a number and all that. But just something to give somebody a pause for thought, because I think a lot of these ads kind of do that, and you kind of stop me. We had a chuckle last week and whatnot. And you know, I’ve talked about this forever, that I’m not a sports gambler. I don’t I have a hard time thinking about sports in that way. After 35 years on the air, of not doing what I see on television, which is, Who we gonna bet on the game tonight. There’s a lot of that that’s going around. That’s my number one thing is just how different the world has become. Very, very quickly.
John Martin 02:57
You know the number one thing is, and it’s probably more than one thing, as you break it apart is and it’s encapsulated our message, play responsibly. And what that just means is is have a plan. Stick with it. Don’t chase your losses. Do it when it’s a social environment and you’ve got people and you can enjoy the game as a game, and that is a financial obligation. You know, there’s so many things tied to it, and I can fully appreciate, you know, we talk about these things. We talk to our good friends at the Maryland Center of Excellence and other community outreach and services that you can find at one 800 gambler but, you know, the whole idea is that most people, most of the time, are playing within their means. They’re playing responsibly. So no one should take away from this that this is a raging epidemic, but even if it’s one person that’s you want to reach them and you want to provide the help and the assistance. So it’s great to have some fun with it’s great to enjoy it. Have a budget, have a time plan, stick with it. If you find out it’s not fun anymore, there are people who can help, and there you can find them at one 800 gambler.
Nestor Aparicio 04:08
You know, when I found out it wasn’t fun anymore, when I could never get my March Madness pools right, and I thought I knew something about basketball. You know what? I mean, it is that time of the year. It is March Madness. But you got big jackpots going on, my wife, you almost caught your wife’s attention at the wise the other night, as she was checking out, she’s like, John’s going to want to talk jackpots with you a little bit this week. And I’ve also heard the ads too. We’ve got a couple of big ones, right? They are,
John Martin 04:31
they are rolling in a positive direction, which is always good to report. They’re both positive, especially Exactly. Let’s see what I did there. Kind of worked that in doesn’t even realize that they are significant triple digits for for for anyone, I think would would bear to say as we speak, we’re over $350 million on the Powerball and well over $270 million on the Mega Millions and and we hope that those things continue to grow. Of course, they are. You can go to MD lottery.com to find out the dates of those drawings and the rolling jackpots. So people, hopefully will enjoy that. Have some fun. And you know, it’s been a while Nestor that I’ve had to dust off my
Nestor Aparicio 05:11
I was going to ask you, you are a little bit, if people want to understand John Martin, the life of John Martin, it’s a little bit like you remember in Wayne Manor and Batman, there was like a special red phone that, like when someone hits this thing at 11 o’clock at night, you sort of know, by midnight. And if someone in White Marsh, would someone in White Marsh or right here in in Parkville area, one, 3.3 million we talked about a couple weeks but 350, 3 million would that’s a lot. We would wake up in the morning and we’d say, oh my god, someone in Glen Burnie won, or someone in, you know, Paradise, people don’t know where paradise is, is near Catonsville. It’s just inside the beltway Catonsville. But somebody here wins. It really it’s a big, big deal in your office. It is. It
John Martin 06:00
is a big deal, and it’s certainly a big deal for the winner. But, yeah, we’d like to do that. We enjoy getting out in the community and handing those big, oversized checks. It’s hard to take those to the bank, but you know, you get the
Nestor Aparicio 06:09
idea what really happens. Like, seriously, do you get a text, the phone call? Like, what is your life in the life? First
John Martin 06:15
of all, they know lottery. They know not to wake me unless it’s really, really important. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 06:20
just the first million dollars.
John Martin 06:22
No, I that’s really, really important. Okay, all right, wake you. You would be awakened. Okay, next, I would be awakened gently. You know, Alfred the butler comes in. I’ll take your and first of all, we confirm as best we can that we do have a winning ticket also
Nestor Aparicio 06:43
Powerball. We’ve got a winner John,
John Martin 06:46
and so the first outreach is through that retailer, just to confirm and make sure that they they may get some contacts from media, and we help them, kind of counsel them, because they are, in fact, big winners as well. When jackpots get this big, they they win $100,000 and that’s, that’s, that’s good news to them.
Nestor Aparicio 07:09
So then we hope you sold it. It cost
John Martin 07:11
us, right, right, right. Pete does as well. So yeah, you know, you, you go through those, those preparations. But you know, as we talked before, it’s been years since there was that frenzy in the media, right?
Nestor Aparicio 07:26
When is like, I mean, there was a huge one in Lone coning we talked about that, you know, baseball town, way out on the west, west side of of the state. But I can’t, I mean, I’ve known you a number of years, and we haven’t had a big one, a Powerball, or a Mega Millions big winner here in five years, maybe, well, the first
John Martin 07:44
one I remember there was there was probably the beginning of the end. And by that, I mean the media kind of changed was, boy, I’m going to get this wrong. I want to say it’s maybe 2012 that was a long time ago, okay, yeah, yeah. And it was a big, Mega Millions win that we shared with multiple states, and I think we reported early we were one of three states that a share jackpot. And I can remember the director of the lottery that time standing in the parking lot of the 711 where it was sold. And it was like a good old fashioned press conference, standing in front of microphones, in front of him and cameras, because at that point that was a big deal. It was a $650 million jackpot split three ways. It was a $200 million Yeah, but that was the media thing. I’m thinking, Wow, that’s pretty cool. Now, if we were to sew in these things, I’d be standing in the parking lot holding Fourth of July sparklers, and no one would show up. So the media has kind of moved on from that. It really takes a billion dollar plus jackpots to get get the media to come out. But again, it’s still important to the retailer. It’s clearly important to the player. So yeah, we look forward to it. I hope in my career, I’m on the back nine of life here. I hope in my career I get one more of those before I hang it up, that’d be nice. Be
Nestor Aparicio 09:01
like sudden Sam McDowell, or in this case, Charlie Morton, trying to help us out here. John Martin is here. We don’t just talk about Mega Millions Powerball. We always talk about responsible gaming. We’ll get to sports wagering in a minute, because I know you some numbers report, but, but baseball and baseball season, we took March Madness. I mean, so much of what you and I wind up talking about in regard to the lottery and different things, is sports is kind of always been this backdrop, and now sports wagerings part of this, but baseball and home run riches that’s been going on. I mean, I remember when Gary Renee hit the $1 million grand slam. For some nice lady, you can Google that, 1982 8384 back when I was a kid, there was a big home run that was hit on behalf of the lottery, being involved with home run riches. And how many? I mean, strike this up. We’re going on 4050, years of doing this with baseball, and you’ve tried to make this more fun year after year. I know what the Orioles that they moved the fence in. So you’re gonna have to give more money away this year, John. And we’re gonna. Have more pitchers here giving up more home runs? Yeah,
John Martin 10:02
well, we’ll take our chance to that, unless they move it right behind shortstop. I’m not too concerned yet, but the the version this year of home run riches, our $5 fast play ticket is called Walk off winnings, and it’s got a new feature to the ticket. So in addition to matching numbers. You know, when you play a fast play game Nestor or with a scratch off game, you know, typically we give you the winning numbers and then your numbers, and you try to match those. So that’s the basic element of the game. But we have, in this case, a walk off winnings bonus game, a new feature this year where you match a symbol on the bottom half of the ticket, and hopefully, if you do match, there’ll be cash prizes involved in that. So that’s a fun little wrinkle of the game, but those tickets can be entered into our contestant of The Game contest, and you can go to MD lottery.com, for all the details and find out how you can turn out that $5 investment in a home emerges ticket into potentially $500 if you’re selected as a contestant of the game for any one of the 162 ball games, and you get $500 for every Orioles home run hit that game that you are the contestant of the game. And if one of those should be a Grand Slam, you get $5,000 so lots to lots to be interested in through each and every game of the season.
Nestor Aparicio 11:23
This is the one where, when I read the fine print on our little deal we have where I promote the Maryland lottery and give out tickets and stuff, where I can’t win. And I this is one where I really wish I could win. You know, our contest of the game tonight, Nestor Aparicio of Towson, Maryland. And you know, we would sit there on every single bat, you know, like, be like, just give me like, I’m not trying to be greedy. Just three home runs tonight. That’s not greedy to me. But that would be a big night if you if you are the winner, and they hit three for you that night, that would be really nice. Four would be crazy. But, man, if it’s a night like that, belanders playing, and you know what I mean, we got no chance, and we’re in some I just want everyone to win a lot of money when they do this. Because I really do too. I notice it now, just being a lot, you know, like, when I’m watching the game, I’m like, when a home run gets hit, somebody somewhere in this stage jumping up and down, their friends are at the house. And I think that’s kind of fun, you know it is.
John Martin 12:22
And we put the contestants on the website at MD lottery.com, so we, we will draw contestants, typically, for the month ahead, so people can enter now, and the entry deadline for the first wave will be March 23 so on March 24 we will pick all through the month of April. So
Nestor Aparicio 12:46
people on the show John like, when somebody when, when the Orioles hit a grand slam, any grand slam, somebody’s won five grand it’s somebody that plays home run riches. It’s somebody in our state, it’s somebody that’s probably an Oriole fan to begin with, because that’s why they would play home Absolutely, as opposed to, like, playing Monopoly, or, you know, doing a different kind of game. And, um, and they might not even necessarily be a sports gambler. We’ll get the sports gambling numbers. They’ve just somebody that plays the lottery, likes baseball, my watches the games. I just think that’s exciting. You know, when they hit a great like, I can’t imagine how excited you’d be if you’re that person. It’s that’s kind of neat, and obviously
John Martin 13:25
I’m prohibited from being in that situation as well. But you’re right to know that you’re selected for a game next Thursday’s game, and then realize every pitch you’re on the edge of your seat. And then games
Nestor Aparicio 13:38
are random too, like having but
John Martin 13:39
I mean just just in a general sense, just the notion that anytime a pitch could be a home run, sure, and then you see, oh, they walk a guy, oh, a guy gets a hit. Oh, they hit a batter. Wait a minute. The bags are loaded. Now that Frenzy is even more heightened. Oh, it’s got to be a roller coaster for it would be
Nestor Aparicio 13:57
like everything or a weaver would be against, because with two guys on you’d be rooting for the three run home run, if I’m the lottery contested that night. No, no, no, load the bases. Get greedy quick. I really would. I would get great. Yeah, John Martin is here. He is not greedy. He is giving away more money this year in home run riches because the orals move the fences in. But that’s not all that’s going on. And we’ve talked responsible wagering and sports wagering. And I remember back we opened casinos that we had to go to the casinos that now everybody’s got the phones out and all this. You have a little timpani every month as to where all this goes. I don’t want to get too political here, but we are in Annapolis trying to figure out money and advertising taxes and all sorts of things that are going on, but the lotteries money and the sports wagering money and all the years of me talking about, first off, slots, horse racing, I mean, I’ve been doing this 34 years. There is a lot of money that now goes back to the state that even when you and I started doing this two, three years ago, that that wasn’t a report that you made every month to say we’ve made a contribution for. All the people we see out gambling responsibly, having fun, even in January, February. Super Bowl was in February, those numbers then come in, and it’s your obligation and responsibility to report
John Martin 15:10
them. And we had good numbers to report on the sports wager in front for the month ending in February, which remember, was the shortest month of the year. It is that way each and every year, I know, but the month of February in 2025 was the ninth best month in sports wagering history. Here in the state of Maryland, in terms of contributions to the state, there was, let’s see, over $6.3 million of of tax revenue that went to the state in the month of February, which brings our year to day total for the for the period here in the current fiscal year to over $61.2 million and why is that significant? Nestor, it’s significant because last year, for the entire fiscal year of 24 we had $60.3 million so here we are with still plenty of year left to play. We’ve already surpassed last year’s contribution to the state of Maryland, and of course, the beneficiary on sports wagering is the blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund. So yes, with all the talk in Annapolis about the blueprint and and revenues, we feel that we’re able to contribute in some small way to that conversation, and still have a few months left on on the clock here, one of
Nestor Aparicio 16:30
the fascinating parts of this, and I know we talk about this at Mako in the summary, get together, and all the elected to get together is that there was a number five years ago, 10 years ago, when this was all brought forth to say, how much revenue will there be? How many people really will gamble? Mean, I’ve opined out loud, how many people would gamble on baseball when there wasn’t a culture for it here in America in a traditional way, and knowing that I’ve been on sports radio for 30 years, and even being out in Vegas, there wasn’t a culture around that. But people are doing it sort of incrementally, and getting involved, hopefully having fun, whatever. But you see more of that March Madness was always a thing. Super Bowl was always a thing. It’s not a shock. They moved the Super Bowl into February. But when you say 61 million last year, 61 this year, 60 last year, and your fiscal begins in July, those projections, I just find that to be the hardest thing that anybody could have guessed five years ago, even the casinos guest wrong in a lot of ways, thinking it would be more confined within walls and brick and mortar than it is. Really become a mobile environment that has made the numbers even probably higher than anything they got together in Annapolis, and I don’t say promise, but at least budgeted or thought or alleged years ago when we couldn’t do this stuff, which was oh, three, four years ago.
John Martin 17:45
Well, certainly they’re appreciative, and we are as well to be able to support that again, keeping guard rails in for Responsible play, making sure that the wagering is on the up and up, to use a phrase from your past, but yeah, we certainly take responsibility very, very seriously. We make sure that that we’re offering entertaining options and working with people who share the same high standards for for Responsible gaming and offering a product that is appealing to the masses. And yeah, we do that each and every month, and we’re happy to report these numbers. We should expect in the month of March, because of the tournament, an equally strong month April and May and June will, kind of, you know, see a a predicted and expected decline, because again, the calendar, the sports calendar is much softer in April, May and June than it is in other times of the year. But I think again, we’ll have where will it end up on june 30, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you, clearly, it’s going to be our best year ever. It already is. So yeah, hopefully we’ll be able to add some more money into the conversation and be prepared for next fiscal year. We
Nestor Aparicio 19:03
talk so much about a gambling response, but you hear the ads, and you’ll hear John Martin if you caught last week’s I got one of the six wrong, or sort of wrong, or I’ve had to think about it too long, or I got the buzzer on me, so you can learn all about that. I think we’ve covered all of this. We, you know, we didn’t hit the monopoly promotion, and that’s the one. And I’ve said this, maybe it’s the shiny tickets, maybe it’s the Community Chest, maybe it’s that I was always the box car, or we wanted to talk about that. And when I say this out loud, it then shows up all over my social media that I played a lot of monopoly as a kid, but these have been the most popular. When I go out in places, when I’m shopping at wise when I was over cost this, I see people playing this game specifically, more than any of the other scratch offs. I see maybe this side of the Raven scratch off.
John Martin 19:48
So, so let’s hit that one, because we do have a nice the nice closer with with this. So we have our monopoly Second Chance contest. You can see all the details at MD lottery.com, But we just had our first of two rolling cash jackpot winners, and that is Janelle Ballard of Glen Burnie, Maryland. I am still counting up the the final tally, but it’s well over $125,000 that jackpot has not been reset and will roll again and be selected in a few months. But we also had five, $5,000 winners, and they are Michael Sheldon, also of Glen, Burnie Don Marcus of Hagerstown, Ray Clark of Baltimore, Brooke Bachman of Baltimore, and Terry Barrett of Brad Shaw, Maryland. So the question to you, Nestor Aparicio, is, where in the world is Brad Shaw, Maryland?
Nestor Aparicio 20:41
Well, I mean, it’s a nicer place than you know Terry Bradshaw, who’s actually very nice to me every time I’ve ever met Terry Bradshaw. But that is a, I know there’s a Bradshaw Road in Kingsville, Maryland, I don’t think that’s it, so I’m going to google it up. I’m going to try to figure it out. But everybody that knows it turns out that it is near Kingsville, but it is actually between 40 and 95 east of Kingsville and north of honeygo. It is near gunpowder. It is right underneath of the wnst am 1570 tower. So turns out I’ve been to Bradshaw Maryland by being near Bradshaw road. So I wasn’t all I was off by three miles. I didn’t know there was a Bradshaw Maryland, though
John Martin 21:27
I did not. That’s why we have we both learned something. Nestor and people will tell us that you and I both need to learn a lot.
Nestor Aparicio 21:33
Dare I say that you’ve been to Bradshaw Maryland too. If you’ve been between, if you’ve been up Lasky highway, between Philadelphia
John Martin 21:39
road. You’ve gone right through it and didn’t know it. And I traversed those, those roads for many years and never known that I was in and through my goodness,
Nestor Aparicio 21:50
Midway liquors. I mean, that’s like right behind Bradshaw’s right behind there, route 40. So, you know, Joppa town, it’s sort of right around the is right. There it is. Right there. It is the opposite. Well, congratulations. And would you say that they hit a grand slam if they got $5,000 would you say that?
John Martin 22:07
No, I would not, because don’t, don’t mix my promotions. This is not a bully, a base of promotions here, and who had that on their bingo card? I’d not, you
Nestor Aparicio 22:18
know, I thought of you the other day, so I was cleaning my office and I found an old an old Sniffer, and I just said the word sniffer out loud. It makes me laugh just thinking that the scented holiday variety ones are not here. You threaten me that we’re going to do eggnog this year. John Martin is the executive director of all things. Marilyn lottery in gaming gives me these things magic, eight balls that I’ll be giving away. CVP in Towson on Friday. Next Friday, we’re going to be pizza Johnson Essex on the 21st Luke’s going to be coming out doing baseball. We’re going to do a lot of baseball. Next week, we’re going to be in Canada for baseball. I hope Getty Lee’s going to be there. We had Rick Emmett of the rock band triathlon talking about baseball and rock and roll. And I think by the time next month rolls out, I’m going to hit Roz up, see, I get some monopoly scratch offs to give away as well, because that’s a rolling jackpot, and we’re having fun with all of that. Marilyn, lottery reminds everybody out there, be responsible this month, every month, every day, with all you’re doing, there’s a lot of help out there. You’ll hear the commercials. Listen to them. They’ll be clever. They’ll make you laugh a little bit, maybe make you smile a little bit, but make you think a little bit, especially if you’re out and you are wagering responsibly. My thanks to John Martin, everybody at the Maryland lottery, putting together the Maryland crab cake tour and other inspiration and perspiration endeavors that we have here this month. Luke is out doing all things ravens and Orioles. If there’s any more breaking news, we’ve had a lot this week, the free agency on the Orioles, trying to acquire a little bit of pitching so we don’t give up so many home runs, even though you don’t get money when the other team hits home runs. So we can’t have that around here at home run riches. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
