Ehrlich Tempts Maryland with Table Games
Written by Roger S | Saturday, May 1st, 2010
The Washington Post noted that former governor Robert L. Ehrlich is trying to tempt voters by waving the possibility of legalized table games such as poker before their eyes. Ehrlich would be “open to conversation” about introducing these games to Maryland if voters return him to Annapolis. He called table games “a legitimate issue”.
To his credit, Ehrlich has always been an active gambling proponent and he fought (unsuccessfully) to introduce slot machines to the state. It was only during the year that he left office that Maryland voters approved the introduction of 15,000 slot machines at different locations around the state. Ehrlich has been credited with creating the groundwork for this approval.
While the approval was received in theory, the allocated slot games are far from ready to go into action, with setbacks and delays a part of the landscape. Ehrlich is not optimistic about the state’s ability to move on and introduce poker and other table games at this point. “We can’t get slots straight,” he said.
“All they’ve done is screw around with it, it’s cost us billions of dollars and it’s made us look silly,” said Ehrlich. He pointed out the neighboring states such as Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, have gotten their act together and “are laughing all the way to the bank.”
Maryland realizes that if it wants to keep abreast with competition generated by surrounding states that are already in the table game track, it will have to make reforms in its own law books.
There have been attempts to introduce table games in selected venues in the state, the most recent being the Racecroft Raceway in Prince George’s County. However, the efforts were shot down by the current Governor Martin O’Malley (D) who believes that the state first has to settle the issue of slot machines before moving on to table games.
This fall will see O’Malley face Bob Ehrlich in a retake of the 2006 election where the latter was unseated.
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· Written by Roger S · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
