MD House pushes to get the Senate, Moore on board with igaming

The best Democrats in the Chamber hope to persuade state senators and the governor to support the legalization of online casino bets, which, according to supporters, are generating essential tax revenues.

Researchers and public health professionals say, however, that Igaming would tackle those who are sensitive to games of chance. They also argued that The state must understand the extent to which legalized sports betting exacerbated the games of chance before opening the way to a new market.

It is also to know if the Igaming market can cannibalize jobs in the Maryland brick and mortar casinos.

Dell, she said that new market income would help state democrats pay for their priority policies – namely the Maryland education reform plan – during what should be aggravated by the budgetary crisis.

“Given our deficit prospects for a very close future, I think it is a very viable option this year for the Senate and also for the governor,” said Atterbeary on Monday during a bill audience in its committee.

The President of the Senate, Bill Ferguson “Hundreds of millions” of dollars in cuts In addition to the $ 2 billion that Governor Wes Moore has already offered for next year’s budget.

Ferguson, however, does not see Igaming as a viable option this year, his spokesperson wrote in an SMS.

The governor’s office refused to say where he is on the measure.

The Chamber voted during the 2024 session to legalize Igaming, but the measure stopped in the Senate, where the members were concerned about the new market harming the casinos and increasing the incidence of the problematic game.

Atterbeary argued that the State could not afford to continue to miss the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues that the market could generate.

She and other supporters have said that regulations would allow the state to capitalize on the income already generated on the illicit market of several billion dollars.

Atterbeary said on Monday that a regulated market would better protect people likely to play games of chance than the illegal market. His bill includes requirements for age verification technology, limits of the quantity of people who may spend, a ban on the use of the credit card and a voluntary exclusion program, among other things measures.

But researchers and those who argue for problematic game resources say that studies have shown that igaming is very addictive and that the states that have legalized it have seen peaks in calls and messages to problematic hotlines of game.

“With casino games already so popular in the state, allowing them to be played on our mobile phones and at home is a dangerous public policy,” said Mary Drexler, director of Maryland Center of Excellence on the problematic game , on Monday hearing the bill. “Our experience at the center is that when the state makes the game more accessible via the Internet, this increases damage.”

Most state revenues would help pay the ambitious and expensive plan plan, which includes plans to stimulate education systems and students’ performance throughout the state, starting infant education at an earlier age, in Increasing teachers’ salaries and strengthening career and technical education opportunities.

THE The governor proposed a delay Certain parts of the plan, but the support for any change in the plan has been difficult to find.

The legislators were particularly frank against the Moore plan to temporarily freeze certain funding for schools with concentrated poverty.

Igaming supporters can present it as a way to avoid such changes or delays in the education plan.

The spokespersons and lobbyists of the games of gambling said on Monday that Igaming had not caused a loss of employment in the states which legalized it, and that the market in fact helped the casinos to recover The jobs lost during closures linked to Covid and a decrease in income in states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

But the representatives of the union say they have seen hundreds of their members lose work in states that have adopted Igaming, and that new brick and mortar casinos, not Igaming, increased the number of jobs in the ‘industry.

A unit spokesperson here said that members of the Labor Union working in hotel and catering jobs in casinos – including cleaning women, barmans, servers, cooks and lava -Vaisselle – depend on the installations generating income from game games in person.

The Aderbeary bill also stipulates that Igaming would go to voters as a voting question in 2026 if the legislative assembly votes for the measure, but on Monday, it said that this last step was perhaps not necessary.

Maryland voters have approved previous constitutional referendums for the game that could prevent the need for another ballot, although the prosecutor General Anthony Brown and his team have not yet weighed, she said.