Maryland – Gambling in America
In 1973 Maryland began a state lottery. The state’s gambling products include instant games, a lotto, a daily numbers game, and keno. It also participates in the six-state Big Game lotto. In 1974 Maryland authorized an “interest-only” lottery, based upon Great Britain’s premium bonds. In Great Britain a player purchases a bond and remains a player in a monthly lottery as long as he or she holds the bond. The bonds draw no interest. Instead, funds equal to part of the interest are put into a prize pool. At any time the player may redeem the bond for the full price paid for it. In other places, such as Cuba and the former Soviet Union, these are called “lottery savings bonds”. Many people buy such bonds for a couple when they are married or when a child is born. The former Soviet Union used these bonds in the 1920s, and Castro tried to institute this form of lottery in Cuba to replace the traditional lottery that had been operating before the revolution of 1959. After much planning, Maryland dropped its plans for the “interest-only” lottery, as the game could not promise the flows of revenue the state could gain from the other lottery games.
Maryland has had its share of active casino proponents, but their efforts have never gotten too far off the ground. Instead, nonprofit service clubs and organizations have won the right to have slot machine gaming at locations in counties that border the ocean. The state has also had an active horse racing industry for hundreds of years. There are six tracks as well as five offtrack betting facilities.
Since 1870, the Preakness, one leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, has been run at the Pimlico track in Baltimore. Pimilico is located on the edge of Baltimore. The track was also the site of one of the most notable match races in U.S. history, when in 1938 Seabiscuit defeated War Admiral, a Triple Crown winner.
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