Delaware raised the gambling stakes in the region Thursday when it legalized sports betting and moved toward allowing table games at its casinos, prompting fears among Maryland leaders that revenues from Maryland's slots-only parlors could be jeopardized.
With two of four planned parlors less than 20 miles from the Delaware state line, Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller worried that competition from bigger and more diverse casinos in Delaware would bleed revenue from Maryland's nascent slots program. He decried a "crippling" provision that requires any new forms of gambling be approved by voter referendum, thereby delaying Maryland's ability to follow Delaware's lead.
"We're so slow in this," said Miller, a Calvert County Democrat who has fought for casinos in Maryland as a way to save horse racing. "Delaware and West Virginia were not even considered horse-racing states. ... Now [they] are way ahead of us because they use the gambling revenues to fund the purses."
James R. Karmel, a history professor at Harford Community College and gaming industry author, said Delaware appears to be positioning itself as "the new East Coast center of gaming, a rival to Atlantic City, which is horribly depressed."
"The competition is intense," said Karmel, who runs gamingatlantic.com. "What Delaware is doing will obviously have an impact on Maryland casinos when they get built."
While slots are considered the "cash cows" of casinos, Karmel said, table games "draw a more upscale clientele. Especially if you can attract high-rollers, they're spending money in other ways - on food, drinks, spas, shows."
Joe Weinberg, president of The Cordish Co., which wants to build a 4,750-machine slots parlor near Arundel Mills Mall, said in a statement that "competition from neighboring states, like Delaware, will only increase."
He said Cordish's plan to develop "an integrated gaming, retail, dining and entertainment destination, at an already established regional center, is the only way to intelligently approach gaming in Anne Arundel County and the State of Maryland."
Other bidders for Maryland slots licenses did not return calls Thursday.
Last fall, voters approved slots at five locations, and a state commission is reviewing applications for parlors to be built in Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, on the Eastern Shore and in Cecil County. Donald C. Fry, head of the politically appointed commission, said licenses could be awarded this fall and the first parlors could be open by early 2011.
