After years of expanding gambling in Maryland — including making sports betting available on phones — the General Assembly is confronting the next frontier: whether to let voters decide if online casino games like blackjack, roulette and slots should be legalized.
Lawmakers are posing the question: “How much is too much?”
Some members are also considering legislation to save problem gamblers from their own worst impulses by, for example, raising the minimum age from 18 to 21 to play daily fantasy contests.
“We’ve taken a very cautious approach given how much we have already approved over the last several years,” Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chairman Guy Guzzone said in an interview. His committee will consider several gambling bills, making him a key player in the gambling expansion debate.
“It’s not that I’m saying everything’s off the table, but we’re just taking a very slow, careful look at all of them and seeing the impact we might feel on all kinds of things, from problem gaming to investments the state has already made in this area,” said Guzzone of Howard County.
House and Senate committees have scheduled hearings on various gambling bills this week.
In 2024, the Maryland House passed legislation to put casino games onto phones and laptops through legalized online gaming. The bill, which would have required voters’ approval in a ballot referendum, died in the Senate.
With Maryland facing a projected $1.4 billion budget deficit, sponsors say Internet gaming (iGaming) measures would establish an important new revenue stream without raising taxes.
“We continue to have a structural deficit and have to get out of the habit of balancing the budget for one year without putting new forms of revenue in place,” Democratic Sen. Ron Watson of Prince George’s County said in an interview.
Virginia is considering a casino that could compete with MGM National Harbor — across the Potomac River in Prince George’s County — the state’s top revenue-producing casino.
Maryland’s six casinos collectively contributed $831.3 million to the state in the fiscal year ending last June 30.
“We must act now or we’re going to fall behind,” Watson said.
He said his iGaming measure, if approved by voters, would send $1.5 billion to the state over five years.
Most of the proceeds would go to education — specifically, the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund. But Watson said the bill could be amended to direct money toward a variety of concerns, including helping Marylanders keep energy costs down.
The Maryland Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling, which offers a confidential helpline (1-800-GAMBLER), opposes expanding gambling.
The center says problem gambling has been growing in the state, especially among young men who grew up loving sports — and their phones — and can’t control their betting habits. Maryland launched mobile sports betting in 2022.
“That’s the demographic that is most quickly rising” in problem gambling,” said Blair Innis, the center’s government relations coordinator. “We can’t be making money for the state off the backs of addiction,” Innis said in an interview.
Last year, Del. Julie Palakovich Carr, a Montgomery County Democrat, sponsored a consumer protection bill that would have banned credit card use on mobile sportsbooks and raised the minimum age to 21 for fantasy games.
Palakovich Carr has introduced a similar measure in the current 90-day legislative session that ends April 13.
FanDuel and DraftKings, two leading online sportsbooks, announced recently that they will stop accepting credit card deposits following complaints that consumers were being assessed high fees.
“We just want to make sure the rest of the market follows along,” Palakovich Carr said.
“I’m hopeful this will be the year that the General Assembly will recognize the impacts that legalized gambling is having on some Marylanders and will take appropriate action,” she said.
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