Gambling In Maryland

Interestingly, slot machines were not allowed at all in the state of Maryland until voters approved a referendum in 2008. Since then, the laws have changed: now there are a maximum of fifteen thousand machines allowed across the state and there are five locations which are authorised to hold facilities – Anne Arundel County, Cecil County, Allegany County, Worcester County, and the city of Baltimore. This is where you can go gambling in Maryland.

So far, three of these locations have seen the opening of casino resorts. The Casino at Ocean Downs in Berlin, Worcester County, was the first to open in 2010, after two years of planning and building. Slots and video poker are offered at this destination, with live harness racing from June through to August which you can watch and bet on or just ignore in favour of the machines. They also have two restaurants for you to try out as part of their complex. The second casino to open in Maryland in 2011 was the Hollywood Casino in Perryville, in Cecil County, and this only offers slot machines and video poker along with another two restaurants for you to eat at. The casino is open to two in the morning on weekdays, and to four in the morning on Fridays and Saturdays, giving you plenty of time to make the most of your stay and turn it into a real occasion. June 2012 was the recent date of the opening of the third casino here, Maryland Live! in Anne Arundel County’s Hanover. This is the biggest effort in the state so far, with five restaurants serving excellent food, the Ram’s Head Centre Stage which provides live entertainment, and slot machines with video poker to give you a good mix of games to play. They also have electronic craps to add a little bit of variety!

Soon there will be two more casinos in the state, and if you want to have the most choice available to you then you could wait for them to open before making your visit down here. In Allegany County the next resort will open in mid 2013, the Rocky Gap Lodge and Golf Resort, which as the name suggests will offer extra sporting attractions to customers as well as the casino floor. Finally a big name will come to the state midway through 2014 if everything proceeds as planned, with Harrah’s Baltimore expected to open around that time and some good feelings in general about the levels of entertainment that this casino will present with all of the experience of a national level chain.

Though for now there may not be much in the way of choice throughout Maryland, you can expect that the success of these five casinos will push state legislators to relax some of the limitations that they have put in place and also allow further venues to open. This will make for some healthy competition, which is always beneficial where casinos are concerned – but you can always be guaranteed an 87% return here thanks to state regulations.