Unlike surrounding states, Maryland has not yet legalized slots. Now, with track operators having a hard time making ends meet, horse-racing officials insist on the legalization of slots as a way to aid those operators. Nevertheless, experience in other states demonstrates it is not necessarily the best choice.

As stated by West Virginia Racing Commission chairman George Sidiropolis, “there is no correlation, it’s inverse, in fact.” In Delaware, statistics show horse-racing bets dropped 40% since 1996, when slots were legalized. In Pennsylvania, a 20% drop was registered 6 months after online slots were allowed.

At the same time, in Maryland, some track operators are in trouble. For example, the Maryland Jockey Club had to cut purses for the rest of the year. Noticing those problems, Governor Martin O'Malley said slots are necessary to save Maryland’s historic horse racing industry.

As expressed by O’Malley, operators “are threatened by their inability to compete with tracks in states around us who are able to offer slots. We can't expect them to thrive, or even survive ... if we handicap them and don't allow them the tools that tracks in all the other states are using.”