Two more Maryland casinos have had their applications to offer sports betting advanced by regulators, prompting the governor to call for the swift approval of the state's first retail wagering licenses.
On Thursday, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission ruled that Hollywood Casino in Perryville and Ocean Downs Casino in Berlin have met the criteria for sports wagering licenses in the state.
Those two applications will now be sent to what is known as the Sports Wagering Application Review Commission (SWARC), which awards the licenses.
However, the SWARC postponed an October 14 meeting at which it was expected to acknowledge it had received three other casino applications for sports wagering that had been forwarded to it earlier in the month by the gaming commission. Those three applicants are the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore, Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover, and MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill.
Now five applications have been passed along to the SWARC, which has yet to announce another meeting date. The list could continue to grow, as Maryland regulators and politicians are hoping to launch legal sports betting in the state before the end of football season.
“We’ve approved five facilities, and our work is ongoing,” Maryland Lottery and Gaming Director John Martin said in a press release. “We’ll continue sending applications to the SWARC so that it can make awards and sports wagering can launch by late fall. It’s what the public wants and expects, and we’re doing everything we can to deliver it.”
No one is pushing harder than I am to get sports betting up and running here in the State of Maryland. My full statement following @MDLottery determining that Hollywood Casino and Ocean Downs Casino qualify for sports wagering licenses: pic.twitter.com/fkG7sLFc61
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) October 21, 2021
The Maryland General Assembly passed a bill in April that authorizes both retail and online sports betting in the state, which followed voters approving that wagering back in November 2020. Gov. Larry Hogan then signed the legislation into law in May.
More recently, though, Hogan has been eager to move the process along.
"No one is pushing harder than I am to get sports betting up and running here in the State of Maryland,” the governor said in a statement on Thursday. “With Marylanders looking forward to betting on the NFL and March Madness, we now expect the legislature's Sports Wagering Applicant Review Commission to swiftly approve these licenses."
Bettors will have to be 21 or older to wager on professional and college sports in Maryland when wagering does launch. The state's sports betting law allows for up to 60 online sportsbook licenses to be issued, in addition to 47 licenses for retail books at professional sports facilities and other brick-and-mortar establishments.
Of those potential licensees, 17 specific locations are named in the state's legislation for in-person sports betting licenses, including the home venues of the Baltimore Ravens, Orioles, and the Washington Football Team.
Also included in that list are six casinos, five off-track betting facilities, and two horse-racing tracks, including the host site of the Preakness, Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Those named facilities are getting the first crack at sports-wagering licenses in the state, as the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission has opened its online licensing platform for them.
The process for awarding sports betting licenses in Maryland involves four steps for businesses, starting with an initial review by the SWARC and followed by a criminal and financial background check by the lottery and gaming control commission. After this, it’s up to the SWARC to award licenses and then the lottery and gaming control commission to issue them after a final review.
“The MLGCA’s licensing investigations of these five sports wagering facilities are ongoing, and any licenses that are issued may be revoked,” Thursday's press release noted. “MLGCA staff are also conducting background investigations of each facility’s sports wagering operator partners, contractors and employees, all of which must be licensed by Maryland Lottery and Gaming.”
'We're ready to go'
There will probably be a bit of a gap between the awarding and issuing of sports-betting licenses and when the actual in-person wagering begins.
For example, there will still be “a number of steps” that have to occur following final license approval, according to Rob Norton, president of the Cordish Gaming Group, which operates Live! Casino and Hotel Maryland.
“We have identified that we’d need a couple of weeks, most likely, to complete those final steps,” Norton said in a recent interview with Covers. “And that includes everything from final testing of systems that need to be put in, to actual ‘mock’ days where we take live bets under the supervision, and close supervision, of the [Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency].”
(The agency's managing director of organizational compliance had said in September that they were aiming to compile public comments on the state’s proposed sports-wagering regulations for the gaming control commission's review by October 10. Nothing about the rules, however, was on the agenda of Thursday's commission meeting, and the next meeting won't be until November 18.)
Live! Casino is home to a FanDuel Sportsbook that is awaiting authorization to start taking bets. Norton said they plan on applying for a mobile license as well with FanDuel, as he noted that the “vast majority” of sports-betting revenue is expected to come via online wagering.
In general, though, Live! is just keen to get legal sports betting underway.
“The population has voted, they've asked for it, they're expecting it, and we're ready to go,” Norton said.
