It’s always better when you have more chances to win and John Martin of Maryland Lottery joins Nestor to discuss some fun summer games, Home Run Riches and some sports wagering realities as the action heats up.
Nestor Aparicio and John Martin discussed various Maryland Lottery promotions and events. Aparicio highlighted his 17 Maryland crab cake tour stops and 27th anniversary celebrations. Martin introduced the “Game of Life” promotion, offering a free $2 Cash for Life ticket with a purchase. They also discussed the NASCAR Powerball playoff, with 35 winners receiving $1,000 each, and the potential for a Maryland winner to advance to the final 16. Martin emphasized the importance of responsible gambling, noting that May was the fifth best month for sports wagering contributions, with over $7.7 million raised.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Lottery, sports wagering, crab cake tour, NASCAR promotion, Powerball playoff, Cash for Life, home run riches, Orioles, Perry Hall town fair, gaming, promotions, summer events, Maryland gaming, lottery promotions, sports betting.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, John Martin
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. It is summertime around here, and we’re getting out for crab cakes. I have 17 Maryland crab cake tour stops slated for the summer. I am putting them everywhere. We’re starting to fade these on Friday. So brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I’ll have the Back to the Future, scratch off, spin a lucky batch. We’ll have these this week. We’re also moving around. We’re going to be at the Y in Randallstown on Tuesday. Why? Because it’s summertime and the pools open and it’s Juneteenth. So we’re going to be doing that out at the Y next week. We’re also going to be at readers crab house in Reisterstown on the 26th we’re going to be at an 1823 brewing in July out in Eldersburg. And there’s also a rumor that my friends at deepest squales, who made me delicious sausages over the weekend, also have a crab cake down in Canton. We’re going to be getting in there in July. So I’m looking forward to that, as well as all the usual suspects. Our 27th anniversary is August. The third, I will be eating my 27 favorite things to eat during the month of August, and sharing that with all of you, and I promise you that an egg custard snowball will be on that list. John Martin is the executive director of all things Marilyn, lottery and gaming. He has been absent. I would love to say that you were out running around trying to figure out how to pay all these home run riches, grand slams and all that hasn’t been that kind of baseball season around here. John, unfortunately, I hope you’re enjoying your Memorial Day respite. Happy Summer to you. Good to have you back on the beat and just in time for the game of life. I’ve been playing the game of life 56 years right now, John, and
John Martin 01:38
winning attitude. Nestor, I’m sure. Hey, good to see you again. It’s been, it’s been a little while. You know, I’m not a big traveler. I’m not the bone vivant that you are. I don’t get out and schmooze and travel as much coming off of a West Coast trip, I am a lousy traveler when it comes to a red eye. And I know you do that like it’s another day in paradise. Oh, I’m dragging. I think I got a head cold. You know, there’s a lot of germ factory for I don’t know,
Nestor Aparicio 02:05
two things you need to do on planes. John and I tell people this as a guy that’s traveled interviewed Cal Ripken over Siberia and the North Pole. That’s a true story. I did that. But when you get up in the air, take a book, breathe, take a project, sleep. Just don’t treat it like you’re the one doing all the flying. You know what I mean, like you’re just a passenger in it. And I would tell you to Red Eye, my best advice sleep. That’s my best advice for red
John Martin 02:31
8I can’t, I can’t I watch wicked. I watched wicked On the flight back. I wanted
Nestor Aparicio 02:35
to watch that George Clooney thing that came from Broadway the other day. But I may go to Broadway try to experience it myself. Hey, for you with promotions, we had game of life last week. And I think we’re contemporaries in, you know, our age where I never played the game of life. I did a lot of googling on Wait game of life. You’ve never played the game of life. No, no, we are with that was in it. And you work. I went through this with Seth last week. It asked grown up questions. I was much more into risk and trouble and Stratego and You sank my battleship and monopoly. We went through monopoly. I played a lot of monopoly. I just never played the game of life. So I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know anything about it. I had to look it up. And as it turns out, it was kind of mature for like, an eight or nine year old, for me, you know is it was asking deep, tough questions. You know, yes, yes,
John Martin 03:26
as is the game of life, asking deep questions. But you know what’s no question. You buy one, you get a cash for life. Ticket. Bam, right on the spot, free. BOGO. Bogo, Bogo, as we call it in the trade, wink, wink. So yeah, feel free to check out MD lottery.com, you’ve got through the month of June basically to to participate in this promotion. So,
Nestor Aparicio 03:48
and this is not a scratch off, right? This is, this is a competitor generated game, right? Okay, this is a fast play game. So
8John Martin 03:53
no schmutz, the schmutz. What’s free zone. All
Nestor Aparicio 04:00
you gotta do is hit the price check here. If you do the price check, you’re good, right? So,
John Martin 04:04
right, right. But yeah, gamble life. Fast play. Ticket, buy one. You’ll get a free $2 cash for life. Ticket, so we hope you check that out, as well as all the promotions going on at MD, lottery.com you know, you’re well aware we have our our NASCAR Powerball playoff promotion. We are winding our way through that. 35 lucky winners, people who participate in Powerball submit their ticket into our my lottery rewards program, and for seven weeks, we pick five winners. That’s quick. Math is 35 winners of $1,000 each. They go with this big virtual drum with people from all over the country, and we will select Powerwall, select 16 people. Last year, we had a gentleman who went all the way to the final eight in in the in the promotion. One nice little prize package there. So we hope that even though we have 35 winners, if Maryland is selected, it will be one Maryland winner. So the minute we get one Maryland winner in the. Final 16. The others have some lovely memories to talk about, but we hope Maryland’s one of those 16. And we still have three draws to go, and you can find out who’s who, who’s participating in that, who’s won that in by going into the let me see here, if I’ve got it handy, bear with me here. Well, I’m looking
Nestor Aparicio 05:20
8this up. It says, win cash prize, up to a million dollars in a VIP trip to the Nascar Championship weekend at the Phoenix raceway. So trip to Phoenix is, is, is? That’s good. They got good tacos out there. Beautiful sunsets. That
John Martin 05:33
is very good. And for people who had just won, we just had a drawing this week. We have three more to go, the five where Yvonne Allen from Windsor mill. Ricardo cuarderas from Baltimore, Craig Meck from Glen, Burnie, April swallow from Mechanicsville, and Elizabeth Renshaw. And here it comes. Nestor from I’m hoping to say this correctly. Raspberrg, Maryland. Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 05:55
spell that I’m gonna have to I’m doing the Google Map thing. R, A or R, R, A, S, uh huh, P, E, raspberg, rasp with the E, may be some raspberrg, um, R, G, hold on. I’m looking up rasberg, and it’s telling me it’s an overly, I don’t know. I’m just telling you that. So if it’s an overly, it’s, you know, it’s not far from where that Safeway was couple, you know, you gotta see it from here. Look out your window. You can probably see it from where you are. It says it’s on Bel Air road. It’s, this is right around the corner from Hamilton and Coco’s where I’m gonna be next month, exactly. All right, raspberr. All right. I’m looking it up.
John Martin 06:32
Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s funny, because when I came to Ohio, from Ohio to Maryland, people told me, you know, Maryland’s a little different. Um, counties rule the day. Ohio, we’re very city. Cities elect mayors. Cities have boundaries, township, township in Ohio, villages, you have all those little things, kind of like a Mayberry RFD in some of the rural areas. But you come here to Maryland, and cities like don’t exist. So you can be driving somewhere, and you say, Where the heck am I? I know I’m in Baltimore County, but what city am I in? And then this whole ZIP Code thing throws me off here. We don’t call Dundalk
8Nestor Aparicio 07:06
a township or a village. It’s just you call it. It’s place to place. It’s a base. It’s a frame of mind. Is really what it is. John Martin is here. He’s the executive director wisping. Poetic hero. Have you been to a NASCAR race? You ever been
John Martin 07:21
to one? I have never been. I think you’ve told the story last year. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 07:26
just loud and but it’s beautiful. I mean, it’s faster than you. I would tell everybody I didn’t love it, but I’m glad I went, because I tell the story 30 years, almost 30 years now, I went probably 1997 I went down to Dover and it was, it was really loud, but it was really fast. And I totally understood the allure of the speed, because the cars move so fast, it kind of hurts your eyes. And that’s that I’m not being facetious about, that it’s hard to follow it and track it. It moves so fast. So for those who go to NASCAR, if you’ve never been it, it’s definitely experience you should have. I i would not take that. My wife used to go up in New Hampshire all the time to Loudon, and she loved the races. So yeah. But
John Martin 08:07
8my only racetrack experience, and it pales in comparison to your story, is, I once went and visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is a whole nother story for I guess, the bricks
Nestor Aparicio 08:18
there once, but it was at a party. Well, there weren’t cars going around.
John Martin 08:22
I drove in a, not in a pace car, but in a, like, a little party bus.
Nestor Aparicio 08:28
You circled the track then circle the track. Yeah. Okay, all right. I’ve never done which, again,
8John Martin 08:32
I mean, watching it on TV for years is a totally different experience. I have a
Nestor Aparicio 08:38
feeling it probably took you longer to get around the track that it probably did. AJ, Foyt back in the day, you know, right? Oh,
John Martin 08:43
what a classic thing, 1960 whatever, you know, with all the smoke in the cars and where’s Foyt, and all of a sudden, here he comes. I mean, that’s they don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. Well, if
Nestor Aparicio 08:52
8you want to be a part of it, you can do that. MD, lottery.com, you can learn all about what’s going on. And it’s a Powerball promotion still going on through most of the summer and the end of the month, by the way, for the cash for life, this month is the 29th if you want to buy one, get one free. All right, before we get to sports wager, I want to do home run riches. Let you do your piece on that, because I wish we were leading with that. I mean, it’s not for me to be leading with NASCAR in June, or leading, I’m sort of burying the lead, which is home run riches. This is supposed to be the best promotion. We need to hit more home runs. We need to score more runs. We need to do more things in general. Well,
John Martin 09:34
right there with you, pal, don’t get into how the Guardian
Nestor Aparicio 09:37
want to give this state money away, don’t you? We do want to give more money. We’ve given away, $76,000.68
John Martin 09:43
orders. Not enough, not enough. Speak, two grand slams. Yeah, that’s that’s not enough. But we do have the contestants of the game. So just being selected contestant of the game, each individual wins $500 and then for every Orioles home run hit during that game, an additional $500 and if one of those big taters. Dollars should be a Grand Slam. That’s $5,000 and there’s been only two of those so far this season. So, you know, things can still turn around this week. We’ve got, let’s see. We’ve got, ooh the Tigers. That’s gotten a little challenging here this week. Let’s see. We’ll
8Nestor Aparicio 10:15
look better on our team. I’m just going to say that before he pitches on Thursday night. You
John Martin 10:19
know? You know what I mean? Every once in a while, right? These guys come out of the seemingly nowhere and have, like, a meteoric rise, and then you never hear from again. So who’s to say if this guy’s got some staying power or or not? When’s
Nestor Aparicio 10:32
the last time the Indians, or, excuse me, the Guardians, won the world? So it’s 54 like
John Martin 10:36
850 something. What year was it? 1948?
Nestor Aparicio 10:39
48 okay, you know, I’m at 83 so I’m at 42 years. You are. I don’t even want to do the math, 25 from 4048, or whatever. 20 Yeah, so it’s 77 years. Maybe a long time. Baseball is only here to provide home run riches, because I just feel like it’s not happening for us. So you might as well give some money away. I mean, it has been a I know you weren’t born in 1948 I know you’re Thank you. You might be old, but you’re not that old. Thank you. So like, I can’t the frustration I’m feeling, and we all feel, it feels like baseball’s not for us. It feels like it’s for somebody else. I in it.
John Martin 11:21
I’m just baseball. Ray, it’s baseball. Ray, it’s a great game. It is. It is, win, yeah, go to MD, light.com, and maybe you’re one of the lucky contestants of the game. Can check it out. We have everybody there already scheduled through the month of June, and then each and every month, we pick the the next month’s lucky contestants. And yes, we hope the bats heat up here in summer, and who knows. You know, it only takes one swing of the bat. That’s the fun part about it. You know, we ought to do some time. I think I’ve said this before, and I haven’t done anything with it when it’s got to chronicle who that lucky fan of the game is, and just, you know, I don’t know if it’s Facebook Live. I mean, we could certainly do something like that, just be with them every pitch, just to see the angst they go through on every pitch, which could be a $500
Nestor Aparicio 12:05
pitch to them. Can we pick a day when we have a chance to hit three or four home runs? Pick a pick a day at home game? Let’s do that. It’s 98 degrees when, whenever a team comes in that stinks, gonna have bad pitching just, I just want to load up one weekend, and hit 14 home runs in a weekend, and cost you a lot of money, hit two grand slams. I want to see that sort of productivity out of this line. I could
8John Martin 12:27
wear the money suit. You know, Doug Lloyd has a money suit, and if you ever seen him wear it, yeah, just kind of just money. And I could just be peeling them off right there, right there,
Nestor Aparicio 12:36
in the splash 40, right tell them I’m a 40 Reg, and I’ll wear that. John Martin is here. He’s executive director of all things Maryland, lottery and gaming. It is summertime, and you are also, we say lottery and gaming, the gaming part of sports wagering. Yeah, I had a pretty spirited debate on the air and off the air this week about 800 gambler and about things that could go wrong. I had letter Raskin on this week just talking about sports wagering and your responsibility, and how new all of this is, and how our parents might not have recognized all this. But the one thing that you have every month as the Ed McMahon of the Maryland lottery is the timpani to say, we’ve raised a lot of money for Maryland’s blueprint. We’ve raised, raised a lot of money, and we go through this every single month. But the sports wagering thing, it sort of ticks up. We think football season, and we think about maybe opening day or March Madness, or pools we participated in, or stuff as an old sports guy. But this is going on every day and every month, you do get, like, a spreadsheet and a ledger that says sports wagering is a thing, and people are participating in this. And I don’t say record numbers, because there was no records from three years ago, four years ago, but it is, it is, um, it’s more popular. Maybe Ivan thought it was going to be. And every month you bring numbers forward. Yeah, we do. Every
John Martin 13:51
month we keep a tally, because that’s what we do here at Maryland lottery and gaming. And as an aside, you know, I haven’t seen the Raskin show yet. I’ll have to check that out. You know, if you want a little programming note, the rest of you just kind of talk amongst yourselves. Maybe we could get a little three way maybe, maybe, you know, Raskin Martin and Aparicio, you
Nestor Aparicio 14:10
8know, the premise would be that he invests money and says to people, be careful with this, especially in Las Vegas. And going in, I said, once you go into Las Vegas and you lost money, it sort of quells your appetite to think, win, win, win, bet, bet, bet. But we’re always this is for fun. This is not especially the sports wagering side, where it’s coming at you every night and you think you might have an edge that you don’t have in some way. And that’s where I’m all and I’ve met a lot of people like this in my sports space for 35 years of doing radio that I do worry about people, and then I see record numbers coming in, and I see so many people in my life having fun with it, because it has been fun being an organo fan this year. She might as well make him a little money wager on it, I guess. Well,
John Martin 14:53
for the month of May, and as we’ve talked before, the fiscal year here in Maryland runs through the end of June. So we’re 1112, of the year complete. So
Nestor Aparicio 15:02
it’s like Christmas time for the fiscal year. Now it’s at the end, right? Okay, it is
John Martin 15:06
the month of May was the fifth best single month in our brief sports wagering history. Why? Well, I will tell you why in a second. The numbers suggest that we were up nearly seven, $7.7 million of contributions to the state. Brings our year to date total. Remember, 1112, of the year up to nearly 80 million at 79 point 7 million. And you ask yourself, why? Well, you know, because I think people you’ve got playoffs in in pro basketball and hockey. You’ve got baseball, obviously horse racing, but we always have racing, golf. I mean, you always you got, obviously, a triple crown, yes, with some things going on. So the interesting takeaway from all that is, and what yields those numbers, is that the handle is, is over a half billion dollars, over $500 million and the hold, which is the percentage left from the sports books after they pay out the winners, the hold was very high. It was 13.1% which means the House did well, and the players, not so much. And where players tend to be, stumble on this isn’t with the is called an industry, the parlay bet. You know, back in the day, back when it was a hush hush, wink, wink in the corners. It was a singular bet. Who’s going to win tonight, Yankees, Dodgers. It was a singular bet for the game today. It is a very different dynamic. It is single game parlays. This guy’s going to hit a home run, this pitcher is going to have X number of strikeouts. Yeah, this team may win the game. This team is going to win the first half. There’s going to be a score in the first inning. I mean, there’s so many rapid fire bets in a game that was once years ago, a singular bet, five bucks in this game becomes, you know, multiple bets through a nine inning contest, where it ebbs and flows. And the problem is, these parlays people do, they’re almost like playing the lottery. You pay you put a singular amount for a high gain. In sports, you have to hit every leg of those parlays. And that’s where the education piece really needs to come in. And people need to really pay attention what their their odds are and what they’re wagering. And I think that’s a function of the demographic. You know, the young male who has maybe more disposable income than than other demographics, who fancies themselves as a sports expert. You know, certainly they know that this pitcher is going to strike out more than six guys in the game, and he comes up blame in the second inning, and he can’t, you know he’s out, but, but they think themselves smarter, so they’re, they’re willing to risk money on these so small numbers, 510, bucks, but the upside, if they hit 456, leg parlay, is they’re going to win 1000s of dollars. Well, a lot like buying a Powerball ticket. You know, gotta get all the numbers right? Yeah, you gotta get them all. And that’s, that’s, that’s the issue. And I think, I think that’s where you see a very high return to the house on parlay bets. And we break that down on our monthly, monthly data. It’s hard to win
8Nestor Aparicio 18:06
parlay bets. I don’t want to call it a sucker’s bet, but it’s a harder bet, and that’s the reason the odds are the way they are. It’s hard to stack up five wins or six wins in a row at anything, right? Literally, exactly flipping a coin, yeah,
John Martin 18:19
yeah. And that’s where, that’s where the market is now. And you look at the gross margins, the high returns there in players, people
Nestor Aparicio 18:28
are trying to bet 20 bucks and win 1000s by winning five bets instead of one. Okay, you know, this would be the same thing as going to the track from an old school, and that was the legal place you could actually gamble. When I learned the racetrack, I’d say, Well, if it’s win place in show $2 win $2 place $2 show and the favorite comes in. He pays 785, 50 and 320, I put $6 down. I walked away with 18 bucks. That’s nice math nothing, but it’s not like hitting an exacta, where I take a long shot somebody in box it for four bucks, and I make $195 on that bet because, you know, an eight to one and a two to one came in just on horses. I haven’t thought about it in that way. The thought for me that you report these bigger numbers, it’s just the fact that there’s a lot of games being played now. And I think the betting mindset for me as a sports radio guy for 35 years was football. It was football. Was a Sunday thing or Saturday thing, or a pool card thing or whatever that it was just, I’m going to make some bets on Sunday, maybe chase them on Monday. Always a bad idea, or Sunday night. But that was more of the betting culture prior to apps availability. Got games on it. I got an NBA game and I got an NHL game tomorrow. Got finals, got golf this weekend. Got there’s a lot of different ways that, once it’s on your phone, you see options and opportunities that just were not in front of you. Prior to mobile, prior to mobile. Wagering, and prior to the availability of instant wagering, which is where you’re going to come at me with one 800 gambler telling people
John Martin 20:08
8to take away this. We have to because, again, the exponential growth in the technology and in the availability, as you said, is unprecedented. It’s never going to be less than what it is today, and it’s only going to be more extreme and more more accessible, and all the more reason people need to be educated. And we talk about it certain times a year, but it’s always it’s a constant
Nestor Aparicio 20:32
buzz. I never stopped talking about it because I’m just, you know, because you know, problem gamblers aren’t made in just on Super Bowl Sunday, or, you know this is going on through the course of the year. If somebody is having a problem with this, you find you’re in baseball season and you’re one of these folks in May that you the a word, the addiction, that can’t think it’s what you’re thinking about all day. You should be thinking about other things. And we need to help
John Martin 20:56
when you wake up at three o’clock in the morning concerned about who won the Chinese underwater ping pong tournament that just completed you
Nestor Aparicio 21:05
got a problem, or whether the Padres pitcher, when you were asleep, struck out as many as you needed them to do because you made a late bet, right? I mean, it’s, it’s if it’s consuming you, if you’re thinking about it enough that I’m in your head right now in the car, or you’re on the internet. Get some help. Get some help. Yep,
8John Martin 21:22
it’s there. It’s available. And people can, can turn it around, especially if they’re talking to people from a peer to peer level who’ve been there. Walk that, that same path. That’s that’s very powerful. It’s very meaningful. John
Nestor Aparicio 21:35
Martin is here. He is speaking sensibly about all things Maryland, lottery and gaming, as he does is the Executive Director, lots of promotions going on. Scratch offs going on. Let’s make a deal. Was going on. We got NASCAR going on. I’ve got the Back to the Future scratch offs that I’ll be giving away. We’re doing 17 Maryland crab cake tours this summer, celebrating our 27th anniversary. All the dates will be up this weekend. I’m still finalizing the new Costa sentimony and trying to get that date just right for July, so we can get out there and then leave anything out. You guys are doing events, promotions. It’s summertime. It’s finally 80 degrees outside, and I know you’re out spinning wheels, probably drinking wine in a park, or booze in a zoo, or doing things that are going on, because the lottery is kind of ubiquitous this time of year.
John Martin 22:16
You know, we tend to do those kinds of things. And yeah, people can visit MD lottery.com. Will be at the beer and barbecue stroll in Westminster. The beer was involved, and then coming up next week, a little event that I’ve found myself participating in from time to time in my hometown of Perry Hall, the Perry Hall town fair on Saturday, June 21 will be there it would be a debut event for the Maryland lottery. Fun time to come out, you know, visit with us and say hello, spin the wheel, win a little prize. And of course, we always are available from time to time at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. We’ll be there for the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday, June 27 fireworks night. Probably right.
Nestor Aparicio 22:59
8Oh, every Friday night, absolutely, yep, yep. I used to see him right here behind me when they went off. I think maybe I’ll wear the money
John Martin 23:05
suit that night and be passing out $100 bills. You
Nestor Aparicio 23:10
know, I mentioned this the other day to somebody I might have been asking on the air. I was talking to somebody about the home runs and the the fireworks. When I lived downtown, the fireworks would go off before the home run on television would happen. There’d be, like, that five second delay, and like, the end of the game, fireworks would go off and, you know, so there’s two outs, two strikes, whatever, the fireworks would go off out the window and out here. And I’m like, Well, I guess they won, you know. And, and this would be where the joke comes in is, Hey, can I bet on that still? And I’m like, No, remember the old days like in Guys and Dolls at the racetrack, that the fence would fall down at the betting window, the cage would come down when that when the horses went off, right? So I’m always wondering about timing and television and mobile wagering and all that stuff. This is a lot that has to go right to keep this on the up and up. John, I’m glad you’re out there on the wall keeping an eye on all this for us, that’s our job. It’s what we do. Nestor, all right, as well as going to Perry Hall town fairs. Hey, my son went to the hall, Perry Hall, so I spent a lot of my formative time in my 20s and 30s in Perry Hall. So get out there and support the Perry Hall festival, supporting all things we’re doing at Maryland lottery and gaming. You can learn about all of the odds, learn about getting help. Learn about whether you got the winning Powerball ticket, if you’re that Safeway person with that $1 million ticket out there in the cosmos. Come cash your ticket. Get your money. John Martin is standing by. He is on the front of Baltimore positive. We try to bring him on every week to educate us, keep us square on everything that’s going on, including that great NASCAR promotion. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, we are Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore, positive. You.
