Maryland online casino legalization push falls flat

Hopes that online casino would be legalized in Maryland this year have been dashed after the topic failed to feature during the final state legislative session of the year on Monday, April 8.

There was some hope in the Old Line State that online casino would be legalized as the House passed an amended bill on March 16, which advanced it to the Senate. 

House Bill 1319 was approved by a vote of 92-43 in March, but it was always going to face a tough test in the Senate following a series of amendments initiated by its sponsor, Delegate Vanessa Atterbeary. 

The changes included a ban on using credit cards to fund accounts, a stipulation not present in the state’s current sports betting laws. 

The number of licensees would potentially have more than doubled from 12 to as many as 30, with a license costing $1m for five years and renewal fees of around 1% of the respective licensee’s annual average profit in the three years prior to the renewal. 

The amended bill also included a proposed tax rate of 55% for online slots and table games, while live dealer games would be taxed at a minimum of 20%. 

However, despite this late approval in the House, the bill to legalize online casino was not included in the General Assembly’s legislative agenda for its final meeting of the calendar year on Monday. 

Even if the Senate had passed the bill, it would have still have needed approval from Maryland voters, with the referendum question being at the polls for the Presidential election in November.

Now, with the bill missing the 2024 deadline, the next opportunity to put the question to the voters might not arise until the next Governor of Maryland general election, which is scheduled to take place until November 3, 2026. 

The pace of online casino regulation has stagnated in the US, with just seven states offering the vertical.

Currently, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, West Virginia, and Rhode Island are the only markets that have regulated the sector.

Rhode Island became the latest state to offer regulated igaming after launching with Bally’s as an effective monopoly operator in March.

In New York, Senator Joseph Addabbo Jr’s igaming bill, SB S4856, filed in January, hit a stumbling block after gambling legalization was not included in Governor Kathy Hochul’s executive budget for 2025. 

Following this omission, the senator said at a conference in New York in March that igaming regulation in the state would become a necessity for lawmakers to plug fiscal gaps in budgets as a result of the pandemic.

The legalization of online casino in the Empire State has faced staunch opposition, with unions arguing that legalizing the vertical would “hurt” brick-and-mortar workers and benefit only a few select operators. 

In response, Senator Addabbo said SB S4856 includes a $25m fund to protect land-based venues, adding that the only way this issue can move forward is if all parties are willing to discuss and negotiate.