John Martin of Maryland Lottery preps the purple kingdom for the return of Ravens Scratch-Off season and all of the cool purple prizes and giveaways during football season.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cake, lottery, year, ravens, tickets, maryland, play, connoisseur, win, fried, talking, governor, great, friends, sports wagering, friday, week, scratch offs, bengals, 15th
SPEAKERS
John Martin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back wn S T, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively back from the beach. But if you’ve been listening this week, you do know we were in Ocean City for a couple days last week at the Mako, Maryland county conference. All of that brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery did a little crab cake and down there at the beach. I had four crab cakes at the crab feast on Friday night. Wes was upset with me because he didn’t get any. And he said now he knows who ate them all our friends window nation as well putting us on the road. We’ll be at Pappas on Tuesday the 29th with Andrew county executive Steuart Pittman also former wn st producer Ray Bachman gonna sit in because we’re down in his county he’s a Pasadena guy. We’ll be down in animal County on Tuesday the 29th from two of the five all brought to you by the Maryland lottery in conjunction with window nation this guy got together with me last week. Very rare that we get to sit together in the same room at the same time have Blue Bell Ice Cream at the crab feast we welcome John Martin back on He’s the Executive Director of all things Maryland lottery get me I gotta get the Ravens scratch off the show here because it’s that time of the year right it’s It is
John Martin 01:05
that time of year here. It is absolutely the time here this week we kicked off the Ravens scratch off tickets a $2 and a $5 scratch off folks can go to MD lottery.com to get all the details about not only that fabulous scratch off tickets but the very unique Second Chance contests and featuring a travel with the team for a later date with the Jacksonville Jaguar dinner with Lamar No, no but you know what had I known that the governor was was missing a crab cake I would have been more than happy to to offer mine to him you know that’s he’s my boss and I you know it’s okay for you to take his crab cake. But I shouldn’t be taking his crab cake that’s for sure.
Nestor Aparicio 01:52
Well, what happened was it’s it’s an outdoor event. It’s in the Ocean City convention center parking lot. Our friends, the classics, the port’s my buddy plays in the band there. So I see you I see a whole bunch of people with this van every year. Delicious. Sometimes the crabs are better than others. Crabs are really good this year. They were perfect. They had some good corn on the cob. And my wife’s been getting better according to conference wise, but I’m a crab cake. I don’t wanna say a connoisseur but I have go ahead and say it. What is it kind of sorta let me look up make sure I get the right definition for sure. Because I don’t I don’t want to be the wrong make sure that that I’m overstating my connoisseur kind of sore here I’m looking at up here we go and expert judge in matters of taste. Okay, I’m a connoisseur
John Martin 02:36
so just what was your picture? Is your picture there next to the definition I just
Nestor Aparicio 02:39
wanted to get one that French so no but but so it’s on the buffet and they had they had fried crab cakes which to me and I’ll argue this all day long and I do with fade Lee’s pap is all of my sponsors that none of them fry their crab cakes because the binder in it you have to put more binding in in order to fry it keep it together so they’re like now needs to be boiled so it’s all meat so it doesn’t have any filler. And I’m like no no no, I grew up poor and Dundalk these were fried crab cakes I had one of them and you know when you take one bite into a crab cake whether you want to have three or not. And I took the first bite I’m like, This is my mama’s crab cake. I love this crab cake and it’s not all that jumbled want me it just delicious crab cake. So I wind up like going back like Oliver Twist please please man may have another you know so I had a couple and then the governor ran out but so for the Raven scratch offs and we have preseason all this give me some timeline all of this because it really is like better to get in early right you get more chances to win if you play in August although that sounds counterintuitive when they haven’t started the season yet but there is a benefit and I saw this with him and Richard you get an earlier you have more of a chance of being that person they call upon in August and say tonight your night we’re gonna hit five home runs and when you 2500 bucks. Well no,
John Martin 03:57
absolutely. I mean the Second Chance contest I’m going to try to bring them up here on my screen while I’m talking to you here and of course failing miserably.
Nestor Aparicio 04:07
The last couple of years we get to like October November and the Ravens are running right there. 72 Thanks for good Raven, Raven Raven, and you’re like well we’re running you know tickets in production and soon and like so it does have a little bit of that feeling that if you get in earlier you stand a better chance to be in all of the drawings the next several months to win.
John Martin 04:25
Well and certainly in some of these things are staggered for that intent. Like for instance, we will be offering yet 2023 season tickets. So look at your calendar, this is 2023 so if you want to get in on tickets this year, you have to buy your ticket and enter in your non winning ticket into my lottery rewards to be eligible for the the season tickets for 2023. Now later in the season, once we get past the tipping point and that’s pretty close. Once the season starts, we will be offering the 2024 C Since tickets, so there is an advantage. If it doesn’t matter to you then go ahead you can under anytime but
Nestor Aparicio 05:05
you can’t go on a trip to Jacksonville by buying your ticket at Christmas, I guess is my point.
John Martin 05:09
There you go. Exactly. Exactly. There you go. Not only you were kind of sore, but you are a wise man.
Nestor Aparicio 05:14
I’m a statesman. I’m a man of letters, as we’ll find out here.
John Martin 05:17
You are renaissance man.
Nestor Aparicio 05:19
I do want to ask you about the Ravens in the genesis of this. What was your stuff out? Because not every sports franchise has a state lottery program branded to it? I know. I don’t say it was controversy. When this happened years ago. It’s been going on for so long. I don’t didn’t even begin last century. I mean, it feels like it’s been going on 20 years. Maybe it’s been like that. But you were not you because you weren’t running the Maryland lottery at that point. But it’s you don’t see this everywhere. And there was some not just a lore to it, there was some uniqueness to it at one point, right?
John Martin 05:48
It was trying to recall, it may have been 2008 or 2009. When the NFL kind of said, Okay, we’ll let you guys do this. And I would say at that point, maybe half of the franchises or I should say the lotteries, with with NFL franchises, jumped in on it. At that point, I was with the Ohio lottery, and we did both a Bengals and a Browns ticket. I will tell
Nestor Aparicio 06:15
you nobody won. I said to get that in. I’m sorry. Come on. That was a good day. You feel better
John Martin 06:22
about that? I feel great. Good. So but but to your point, they were not wildly successful in Ohio. Matter of fact, I don’t think we did a second year. Contrast that to Maryland with the Ravens. And I want to say this is our 14th or 15th. Year. And there are a couple states that do that Texas has been very popular with with their games. Georgia with with the Falcons, New England, Massachusetts with with the Patriots, so there are probably five or six lotteries that have really embraced this from year one, and are now in their 14th or 15th Season of that, but also a lot of states that did it for a year, maybe two and it just never never took hold. So we think part of that is the great relationship with the Ravens absolutely they they encourage it support it they are great collaborators and co sponsors, allowing us a lot of amenities and, and truly unique experiential prizes that clearly the fans love and come back to and tend to rely on. And you know, I’ve been a little creative once or twice and tried to do things a little differently. Maybe we’ve changed a price point here or there. We’ve done something differently. But people kind of clamor that’s one thing about about the folks in Maryland, they’ll let you know if if they don’t like the direction. So we’re back to to our traditional $5 ticket or $2 ticket offering a travel with the team. As I said this year it’s Jacksonville our paths for cash on the field experience is a lot of fun to contestants picked for the game they have a timed interval to try to pass a football through a target and
Nestor Aparicio 08:00
there’s a lot of rehearsal going on in preparation for that is
John Martin 08:04
there there should be once you’re selected, no one wants to stand there in front of a rather surly crowd and find out that you’re you’re not up to the task. But clearly cash prizes. I mentioned season tickets, both currencies in Nginx. So a lot of fun, please play responsibly. Go to MD lottery.com. For all of the details on ravens tickets here in 2023.
Nestor Aparicio 08:27
Last thing on the Ravens piece for you is it your most popular has it I guess in certain years when they won the Super Bowl. It’s much like people didn’t buy the Bengals tickets because they probably weren’t very good than or just wasn’t the power of their brand. The Bengals brands on fire now in southern Ohio. Everybody tells me that the white jerseys and all that but the power of the brand and the power of the bird beat the Oriole bird or the Raven bird. I would think if the Orioles going to tear and win the World Series as they’re capable of doing I would think it would it would help the contest next year right like that. You probably sell more ravens scratch offs than probably anything.
John Martin 08:59
Sports fans and lottery fans are extremely superstitious. And should there be long and deep playoff runs for either or both teams? If somebody wants to think it’s because they bought a lottery ticket that helped that path to greatness. I’m not going to refute that. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of have similar feelings. And when the team does well people feel good about it. And when they don’t do well, they’re on to other things. So we’re very fortunate of both sponsorships and relationships with bird land and we we enjoy it. The fans enjoy it and we’ll continue to do it.
Nestor Aparicio 09:38
I don’t know how you and I are gonna pull off radio when the browns and the Ravens get together here the week of October 1. John Martin is here originally from Ohio but he found the good life here in Atlanta plus living He is the executive director of all things Maryland lottery game. So making the beat at the beach last week. We talked about a lot of things last week in regard to sports wagering. Let’s stick the lottery here and what’s going on. We got a State Fair in a couple of weeks. It’s 50th anniversary, it’s linger longer, like my 25th anniversary is about to begin in two weeks. We’re gonna have 25 weeks and 25 stories of glory. You got 50 years of glory here and it’s going to kind of cap off here at the State Fair in a couple of weeks. I just want to milk a cow once in my life, but I want it to be at a minor league baseball game John
John Martin 10:19
Carr connoisseur, Renaissance man and now cow milker. Stock
Nestor Aparicio 10:25
my resume stacking up. Wow,
John Martin 10:27
wow, this is the 100 and 42nd Maryland State Fair, you probably knew that. Or maybe you didn’t. But I haven’t been there for all of them. I don’t think you have either. Well, the format’s
Nestor Aparicio 10:36
difference weekends in format as they change it around a little bit. Yeah,
John Martin 10:41
format is very different. And we’re pleased to be again, contributors and sponsors and partners at the fair. We will be there for all three weekends, starting on August 24, through the 27th that kicks off this week. Then we’ll be back again August 31, through September 4 Labor Day weekend. And then it will be the third and final week, seventh through the 10th. And on that Friday, which is the eighth of September, we will have live and in person, our cash bash extravaganza where 10 lucky winners all through the last several months during our 50th anniversary year have been eligible and selected via drawings on a monthly basis, we now have 10 of them, they will all come to the fear that Friday night at 6pm. And through three rounds will go from 10 to five and they will select live. Who goes to the second round. People will win $10,000 If they don’t make it out of the first round. Thank you very much. The next round will be four of five win $25,000 Thank you very much and one person left standing will have a chance to play a live interactive game for the potential to win from 100,000 up to $5 million. That’s going to be a whole lot of excitement. All right, so that’s
Nestor Aparicio 11:59
Friday, September 8. I need to know this because this is important because my wife likes all time low. They’re playing that night. We’ve had Zach at some of the guys in actually in the studio and the radio station years ago on the air all the time. What time does that go off on Friday? Am I gonna be able to do all time low and do that?
John Martin 12:15
Well, that’s a value judgment. You’re gonna have to make master but our our event will start about six o’clock.
Nestor Aparicio 12:21
Oh, that’s perfect. All right, we’ll get we’ll knock it out by eight o’clock. That’s good.
John Martin 12:25
All right. All right. So yeah, a lot of fun. And of course, there’ll be a fair amount of excitement not only with the 10 finalists, but in their families and friends. But we were hoping that people who were there at the fair that night would kind of be interested to see Hey, what’s this all about? What’s his excitement? What’s the stage bright lights? Why is that guy standing up there getting pretty excited about things and they want to be be part of the the atmosphere that day. So we encourage people who are there the fair on Friday, September 8 to visit with us and and be a part of potentially someone winning $5 million.
Nestor Aparicio 12:56
All right, we’re getting into sports wagering season here. I’m working with our friends up in Hollywood casino in Perryville. We’re going to be talking about wagering here a lot much like baseball talks about it every night. Now. You and I our relationship goes so far back that sports wagering wasn’t legal here. We’re just trying to get the started and then we’re trying to get mobile started. And here we are. This is really the mature time. Right. This is the first real season where you have numbers reported to the governor last week, he reported to our audience last week about the first piece of it, which was last year at casinos, then part of the year for mobile wagering, but this is the first time like that it’s mature, as you would say, right.
John Martin 13:38
Mobile wagering began on Wednesday before Thanksgiving last year. And it came at a great time on the sports calendar with the big Thanksgiving weekend and all things going on both in college and the professional football fronts. But yes, this year, we’re going to start from the inaugural game from from opening weekend. And that’s exciting. And we have at this time, we have 10 retail entities and 12 Mobile sports books. We may have a couple more even before the first weekend in September. That’s how close some folks are to getting up and running. So we’ll be adding to those 22 sports books probably another three or four sometime throughout the the football season. And it’s very exciting because now people can can start and follow their favorites through the campaign. Again, hopefully playing responsibly having some fun sticking to their plan and and enjoying the games responsibly with their with their wagering opportunities.
Nestor Aparicio 14:43
Well, I’m going to tell everybody that you know, slow your roll as they would say. Alright, so we got winners this week and you know, I get the list of the winners. And anytime the winner, it says Dundalk in the headline. This gets my attention because I’m done. Dollar guy 100 large $100,000 down on wise Avenue with the quick Marna. Yeah, we had a lot of great winners
John Martin 15:08
from great stories. And again, people go to MD lottery.com. For, for the details on these stories, and some of them are, are very, very interesting. There’s a story we have a game called pick five, a five digit number. And of course, we’ve had pick three and pick four, twice a day for several years. But about a year or two ago, we started to pick five game and and you think five numbers, right Lougee? What could they possibly be? So there’s a gentleman a 53 year old Baltimore County man who is standing in line, and he hears over here is a woman in line talking about how she played her house number, her street address. And it guys thinking, Hey, that’s not a bad idea. And he can’t remember what his street address was. It was apparently a previous location as a five digit number and he’s drinking think of it and finally he gets Gunsmoke 323504. He plays it. Bam $50,000 winner on an old street address. So
Nestor Aparicio 16:05
only had four digits. So you always had to live in a really nice neighborhood. I mean, if you have five numbers before your address, you lived someplace that was dated docket, you know,
John Martin 16:17
yeah. And, of course, a very popular game as well as our fast play game. And these are instant tickets that play from a terminal so there’s no schmutz. You don’t get a little scratchings all over the place. But a longtime Maryland lottery player playing fast play with a progressive jackpot and some of our games do offer that that that incentive that extra so that a couple pennies from every ticket purchase go into a cumulative pot, you know, how progressive jackpots work, and this individual won 117,170 $5,000 on a progressive jackpot, and to make it better an 83 year old retiree. So wow, we wish him well. Uh, hopefully he’ll have plenty of opportunities to invest that money. I don’t know that go with a 30 year plan, but invest that money and, and hopefully his family and friends can benefit.
Nestor Aparicio 17:12
When I’m 83 I’m bloated on me. I’m sorry. If I you know, I hit 117 grand when I’m 83. I mean, I do something nice. My wife made my kid but like I said, 83 If I hit the lottery, um, I know you don’t want to hear me say that. I would waste it. But I would waste it.
John Martin 17:31
You know what I mean, by that time, you would have had your fill of crabcakes connoisseur would would be in your rear view. The first thing
Nestor Aparicio 17:36
I would do is the governor a crab cake and make sure you know, and he’s made it clear to me now that I owe him one because I ate the ones from Oteiza now now you got to take me out for one. So I’m trying to figure out you know, organizing that we’re gonna get the governor out. John Martin is here in lieu of the governor, spokesperson for the governor. He does all things Maryland lottery and gaming. He’s the executive director. As we’re getting ready for sports wagering, get ready for the State Fair. Get ready to roll out the Ravens scratch off that empty I haven’t missed anything. No thanks. Continue
John Martin 18:06
to roll on all fronts and again for all the details about new products new promotions, winter stories, MD lottery.com.
Nestor Aparicio 18:15
Did you eat a crab cake at the crab feast or did you not?
John Martin 18:18
I did I had you know what you talk about binding that wasn’t my problem that when I ate it so that was a whole nother story and unfortunately we’re out of time today thankfully to get into that but the time look, yeah. Wow. How does it happen? But no, I’m I’m in the broad camp. I’m sorry. I’m not a fried crab cake kind of guy. I’m definitely in the broiled,
Nestor Aparicio 18:39
so they were like I’m sorry. Oh, they were they were delicious. The other thing that they had there that I really appreciate that I have gotten all my wise markets folks about is for this month and this month only and I’m giving you a gift for you and your wife, gold watermelon glow watermelon is only available for a couple of weeks. It’s less than peach cake peach cake eggs are about 789 weeks. Go watermelons more like three or four weeks more like an August thing. So anybody gets some gold watermelon. I picked up two on the way back from the shore. I’ve been eaten go watermelon every day. That’s my August gift to you along with fried crab cakes.
John Martin 19:15
I will look for that. This weekend and my shopping excursion buddy
Nestor Aparicio 19:19
can give you read watermelon you know it’s love when it’s gold. Trust me trust me. I know. I have good. Also silver Queen corn make sure you get some of that and the peaches. Summers great. The Maryland water responses. All the things we’re doing we’re gonna make some are great. Get down to Ritchie highway on Tuesday the 29th We’re gonna be at Pappas. I gotta find my pappy shirt. I’m wearing my drug city my fountain shirt. I will have the pappy shirt out for Tuesday as the Orioles are in first place Luke’s in Owings Mills. Lukasik Camden Yards. I will be with Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman on Tuesday, all sorts of other great guests coming down including Ray Bachman that’s the 29th We’re back at Faith Lee’s at Lexington market on the 15th to kick off football season. That’s Friday the 15th we have cop Next day President Dr. Anthony Jenkins as well as Coppin State eagles, new head coach and my old friend Larry Stewart stew coming on the show. We’re gonna be down to faith. He’s on the 15th He is John. I am Nestor. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. I’m gonna get some ravens scratch offs. We never stop talking. Baltimore. Positive Stay with us.
