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Voters in Maryland Approve Sports Betting: What’s Next?
By Jeff Osienya Nov 05, 2020 LegalityLegal sports betting in Maryland has been okayed by voters in the state by a 2 to 1 margin in the November 2020 election ballot. The ball is now in the General Assembly’s court to work out the details of industry regulation.Sports fans in the state of Maryland are now one step closer to enjoying a regulated sports betting market after they overwhelmingly voted to approve ballot Question 2 that involved the expansion of commercial gaming to include sports betting and event wagering. The referendum took place on Tuesday alongside the tight Trump vs Biden White House race, and by night time after 52% of the precincts had reported, the Associated Press called the race in favor of Question 2.
Come Wednesday afternoon after 100% of all the ballots were counted, it was clear that Marylanders wanted to bet on sports betting legally. Of the voters that turned up to the ballot, 66.3% of them at 1,319,439 million voted for the gambling expansion whereas 33.7% at 671,988 voted against the measure, based on unofficial results from the Maryland State Board of Elections.
Marylanders Still Have a Long Road Ahead
Now that the residents of the Free State have agreed to the launch of legal sports betting, they have paved the way for the General Assembly to start the formation of a framework for a regulated market. Lawmakers will be reconvening in Annapolis in January and they are likely to pick up the issue right out of the gate to discuss details of implementation such as the types of facilities that can accept the bets, how the licenses will be awarded taxation, and so on.
According to the language in the referendum’s Question 2, the expansion of gaming in Maryland was being sought primarily to raise funding for education. However, there were no specifics whether the funds would be channeled into the Education Trust Fund kitty where a significant share of the revenue from the state’s lottery and casinos is sent, or it will be directed elsewhere. Moreover, revenue generated from the casinos in the Free State is also used for funding horse racing purses and women-and minority-owned businesses among other community initiatives.
Moreover, it is expected that the structure of the industry will be guided by what is known as a ‘disparity study’ which will establish whether it’s the women or racial minorities for instance who are disadvantaged when it comes to participation in gambling. Based on the results of the study, lawmakers may then have draw provisions that will offer underrepresented groups more opportunity to take part in the expanding industry.
Gordon Medenica, the Director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming, the oversight body in charge of casinos and gaming confirmed the state’s task ahead in a statement on Wednesday saying that;
Quote"The devil's in the details, and there will be many details to come, … we have a vague sense of who the players will be, how it would be structured. All of that is dependent on what the actual structure will be that the legislature will decide upon when they reconvene in January."
Additionally, Director Medenica also indicated that his agency’s officials had already begun the drafting process of the possible regulations that will be governing sports betting in the Free State beforehand, though cautiously, in anticipation that residents would okay the ballot measures.
Huge Potential for Maryland’s Regulated Sports Betting Market
There’s a lot of optimism surrounding the potential of an expanded gaming industry in Maryland now that residents in the state have given it the green light. Fox 5, an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company projects that Maryland will impose a 20% tax on sports betting, splitting the revenue 19 to 1 with the 19% lion’s share going to education and 1% funding the minority business enterprise program.
Knowing the doors that an expanded gambling industry in Maryland would open, gambling companies, the horse racing sector and even the NFL team from Washington pumped millions into campaigns to sway voters. FanDuel and DraftKings, two of the biggest sports betting brands in the US contributed a total of $2.75 million combined to lobby for public support for sports betting in the referendum while MGM, the operator of Prince George’s County, the largest casino in the Free State also spent $500,000 to garner support for legalization of sports betting.
Should the 20% tax rate be passed, an independent analyst has predicted that in-person and mobile sports betting would generate about $18.2 million in annual revenue for the Free State.
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