Maryland’s six casinos predictably logged a dismal year-on-year revenue report for June, the month the casinos were permitted to reopen at 50 percent capacity.
The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported a total of $35 million in June revenues for the six casinos, which contributed more than $14 million in state taxes, compared to $143 million in revenues and $60 million in taxes for the same month last year—a year-on-year decline of 27 percent.
“We think it’s important first of all to focus on safety first and then allow the casinos to reopen gradually,” Gordon Medenica, director of the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, told Baltimore news station WJZ.
“We feel that probably this year, particularly because of the casinos’ shutdown, we’ll probably be something like $190 million less than we were last year, where we did about ($1.3 billion) in total aid to the state of Maryland.”
He estimated this fiscal year’s total will be closer to $1.1 billion.
Medenica said state lawmakers are looking at measures to close the gap, including iGaming and sports betting. “We hope sports betting, for example, will be coming by year-end when the referendum takes place,” he said.
