Maryland lottery officials are scheduled to decide Thursday whether to recommend approval of the state’s fourth slots license, a move that could help a gambling industry struggling to reach the amount of revenue lawmakers promised five years ago. Lakes Entertainment has a bid to invest $148 million in long-term upgrades at the Rocky Gap Lodge and Golf Resort,where a new casino could house up to 1,500 slot machines.
Lakes would be the first successful bidder at the Allegany County resort in two rounds of bidding, as a lengthy licensing process and rejected casino proposals have stalled the state’s efforts to open casinos at all five sites approved in a 2008 gambling referendum.
Baltimore also awaits approval of its own downtown casino, a project bid on by Caesars Entertainment Corp.
The two casinos that have opened — Hollywood Casino Perryville in Cecil County and the Casino at Ocean Downs near Ocean City — have brought in $227.6 million in gross revenue as of March 31, far off the $660 million annually that lawmakers in 2007 promised the five locations would make by this year.
The latest revenue projections from state analysts, prepared in a fiscal report on legislation introduced during the General Assembly this year to expand gambling, are even lower than those in an analysis from October 2011.
Gross revenues from slots in fiscal 2014 are estimated at $787.8 million, down from the $941.5 million state officials predicted just a few months earlier.
The recession shares part of the blame for poorer-than-estimated revenues from slot machines, according to analysts, but so too does the slow process of getting casinos up and running — a process that has taken longer than lawmakers expected.
Gambling opponents point to the lack of financial impact casinos have had as reason not to expand gambling, and urge lawmakers to reject a package to add table games and a Prince George’s County casino to the mix.
But that’s why it’s crucial for the state to quickly award licenses at locations such as Rocky Gap and Baltimore and eventually in Prince George’s County, County Executive Rushern Baker said.
The sooner the casinos are running, the sooner the state can reap the revenues, he said.
