Maryland Lottery

Gordon Medenica
(Director)
Gina Smith
(Deputy Director/CFO)
Jackie Vincent
(Director of Gaming Research and Chief of Staff)
Robert T. Fontaine
(Principal Counsel)
Charles LaBoy
(Assistant Director for Gaming)
John Martin
(Assistant Director for Lottery)
John Mooney

The Maryland Lottery is an independent agency of the Maryland government. Its games include Mega Millions, Powerball, Multi-Match, Keno, Bonus Match 5, and numerous scratch tickets. The Maryland Lottery is headquartered in Suite 330 at 1800 Washington Boulevard, in Montgomery Business Park, Baltimore. The minimum age to buy Maryland Lottery tickets is 18; for video lottery, the minimum is 21 (see below for casinos).

Winning Maryland Lottery numbers are shown on Baltimore television station WBAL-TV. Maryland's largest Mega Millions jackpot winner was for the March 30, 2012, drawing, which produced the then-world's-largest jackpot, approximately $656,000,000. A ticket sold at a Baltimore County 7-Eleven won a one-third share of the jackpot. (The other tickets were sold in Illinois and Kansas.) As with the other two sets of winners in that drawing, the ticket holder(s) chose the cash option, rather than the 26 yearly payments.

In 1972, citizens of Maryland approved a constitutional amendment to begin a government-run lottery. The Maryland Lottery began on January 2, 1973. The Lottery opened its doors for the very first time with 94 employees to handle operations, 3,800 sales agents to sell tickets and 51 banks to distribute tickets to agents and handle deposits. Approximately 60% of sales are returned to players, 30% is used for state-funded programs, 7% is used for commissions to retailers, and 3% is given to the Lottery for operating expenses. The first game—Twin Win—went on sale on May 15, and the first drawing was May 24.Scratch-offs, now the Lottery's best-selling game, became available on February 10, 1976.Pick 3 was introduced in July 1976. In April 1983, Pick 4 began. Keno, initially played only at Lottery retailers equipped with monitors, began in January 1993. (Keno expanded to Keno Bonus in 1999, and Keno Super Bonus in 2009.) In September 1995, Maryland introduced Bonus Match 5. (It ended in 1998, but returned in 2002.) In 1996, Maryland help launched The Big Game, which became Mega Millions in 2002. (Mega Millions now is offered by 44 lotteries.) In March 2012, a Maryland player won a one-third share of the then largest jackpot in American history, $656 million. In November 2005, the Maryland Lottery signed an $81 million deal with Scientific Games. As a result, Racetrax began in August 2006.Racetrax a Tabcorp International product, is a thoroughbred horse racing game.Racetrax became Racetrax Bonus in August 2009.Maryland Lotto was replaced by Multi-Match in 2006. Maryland, as part of the January 2010 cross-sell expansion, joined Powerball.