Maryland’s legislative crossover deadline has come and gone and the state’s budget framework suggests that efforts to legalize online casino this year are likely dead in the water.
Gov. Wes Moore’s outline for the state budget does not include a provision to authorize iGaming as a measure to help make up the state’s projected $3.3 billion deficit. The odds always seemed long
Del. Vanessa Atterbeary and Sen. Ron Watson each returned with renewed efforts to push the issue in the 2025 session, but neither crossed over from their chamber of origin to the opposite chamber by the March 17 deadline.
Watson’s SB340 was heard in Senate committee in late January but gathered virtually no momentum. The bill would have triggered a voter referendum to allow sports betting operators and gaming companies with a longstanding presence in Maryland to offer online casino games. Watson wanted to tax live dealer games at 20% and other approved games at 55%.
Atterbeary’s HB17 would also have taxed most iGaming at 55%. Atterbeary said she filed the new version of the bill to capture an existing illegal online gaming market worth $7 billion annually.
Advocates of both bills pointed to the potential revenue creation, with the iDevelopment and Economic Association (iDEA Growth) suggesting that even a lower 30% tax rate could yield $1.65 billion in revenues over the next five years. Dissenters, including casino operators the Cordish Company, PENN Entertainment and Churchill Downs, cited concerns over cannibalization.
Neither bill ever received a vote in committee and neither even got close to reaching the opposite chamber.
Moore’s proposed sports betting tax hike curbed
Gov. Moore has been pushing to raise online sports betting and casino taxes to help alleviate the state’s financial situation.
In January, the early draft version of his proposed budget included a suggestion to double the online sports wagering tax rate from 15% to 30%. But at a hearing at the House Ways and Means Committee, which Atterbeary chairs, lawmakers approved a revised version that lifted sports betting taxes more modestly to 20%.
The committee also voted against Moore’s proposal to raise the tax on casino table games from 20% to 25%.
The committee advanced the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act but it must now progress through the legislature and be finalized by April 7. There could still be changes to the budget.
Sweeps issue crossed over in time
One online gaming bill that did beat the deadline to cross over from one chamber to another is Sen. Paul Corderman’s SB 860, which would increase punishments for illegal online casino operators and outlaw sweepstakes in the state.
Maryland’s Senate unanimously approved the legislation by a 47-0 vote earlier this month and it had a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee last week, albeit with no vote. That committee has also heard the companion bill, Del. Eric Ebersole’s HB 1140, without voting on it.
