Table Games

While I would gladly attend a bachelor party in Atlantic City, I would prefer not to raise my children there. However, as Maryland continues to morph into that Sin City of the East, I may not have a choice. In 2007, Maryland politicians pushed slots on us in cowardly avoidance of real solutions to revenue shortfalls. We now have not only buffets of slots but also electronic table games, with digital dealers so lifelike you swear they are flirting with you. There are no real (human)

Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation Wednesday asking voters to approve expanded gambling in Maryland as supporters and opponents prepared for what could be a bruising referendum campaign this fall. The governor's action capped a whirlwind special session of the General Assembly that ended with passage of the bill in the House of Delegates without a vote to spare Tuesday night. The Senate agreed to the House's changes early Wednesday morning, ending the session. "We are now able to put this issue behind us and move forward," O'Malley said.

Members of a state work group on expanding gambling met behind closed doors for about four hours Monday, agreeing to recommend that Maryland allow table games at its casinos and keep its current cap of 15,000 slot machines statewide, according to several people who attended the session. Still unresolved, according to three sources, are the thorny questions of whether to allow a casino in Prince George's County in addition to the five now approved and whether the state's 67 percent tax rate on slots revenue should be reduced.

With his call for a special session on gambling next month, Gov. Martin O'Malley is placing a high-stakes political bet that he can prevail in a struggle over one of the most contentious issues facing Maryland. A win could burnish his image at a time when he is widely thought to harbor presidential ambitions. But failure to deliver could deal a blow to his standing at home and in the national arena, political observers said. Flanked on Friday by House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, O'Malley set Aug. 9 as the day for lawmakers to return to Annapolis for the second time since the General Assembly adjourned in April.

The slots casino that a group led by Caesars Entertainment Corp. wants to build near M&T Bank Stadium will not be complete until the middle of 2014 at the earliest, the company's head said Monday, meaning the proposed facility's timeline would be extended by at least six months. "We are anxiously awaiting the issuance of the license for the Baltimore facility," said Gary Loveman, the chairman, CEO and president of Caesars, during a meeting with The Baltimore Sun's editorial board.

A bill allowing table games at Maryland's five casino sites and creating a sixth in Prince George's Countypassed the Senate last week and arrived in the House of Delegates with some momentum in advance of a hearing today. It has the backing of Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker - who, in a previous life as a state delegate, opposed slots - and of Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake, and that has scrambled somewhat the House's typical reluctance to embrace gambling.

If you wanted to play blackjack, poker and roulette on the East Coast, you used to have to drive to Atlantic City. Now you just have to drive to Maryland's borders. That short trip is what Baltimore charter company Superior Tours is betting on. It has begun weekly trips to the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, about a 90-minute drive west of Baltimore. Superior Tours packed two buses for its inaugural trip to Charles Town this month. "We've been taking people to Atlantic City for 16 years," said Marc Komins, an executive vice president at Superior Tours.

Odds are, there's no better bet Maryland can make than funding high-quality public pre-kindergarten programs. It's a winning hand for the state because pre-K has been shown to pay for itself many times over in the form of higher tax revenues, reduced social service costs and lower rates of incarceration. Yet, it's unclear how many takers there will be for a proposal to fund expanded access to public pre-K by legalizing table games at Maryland's slots sites. The idea is included in a package of bills expected to be taken up by the General Assembly this year that would give every child in the state access to high-quality, public pre-K programs.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold told the county's members of the House of Delegates Friday that anticipated slots revenue would likely stave off the need for public employee furloughs. The county is expecting to receive about $15 million from a slots casino at Arundel Mills mall that is expected to open later this year, officials said. The county has furloughed its employees for up to 12 days for the past two years at a savings of $7.6 million annually as revenues have fallen.