Posted on: November 7, 2024, 11:50h.
Last updated on: November 7, 2024, 11:50h.
Voters in Maryland’s Chesapeake Beach pushed back strongly against a local ballot question asking about their eagerness to expand gambling in the idyllic town.
Along with casting their pick for the next president of the United States, town mayor, and town council, Chesapeake Beach voters were presented with a question to gauge the public’s support regarding casino gambling.
The question read: “Do you support the State of Maryland permitting expanded gaming (i.e., additional electronic bingo machines, casino slots, table gaming) to venue(s) in the Town of Chesapeake Beach?”
Yesterday’s outcome marked the second time in four years that Chesapeake Beach voters have rejected calls to bring live dealer table games and traditional Las Vegas-style slots to town. Voters resisted a similar local ballot question in 2020 with roughly 72% of the electorate opposing more gambling.
Town Backstory
The Town of Chesapeake Beach has a long history with gambling. A resort community that was located at the end of the Chesapeake Beach Railway, a now-defunct railroad that connected Southern Maryland with Washington, D.C., many businesses offered guests slot machines that led to the town being affectionately known as “Little Nevada.”
More recently, local businesses and fraternal clubs holding liquor licenses placed slot-like electronic gaming machines in their establishments. A landmark ruling in 2001 provided a legal footing for the controversial machines.
The 2001 Court of Appeals decision in Chesapeake Amusements, Inc. v. Riddle held that a ticket dispensing machine with a video screen that displays the contents of the dispensed tickets and emits a musical tone that signals a winning ticket was not a slot machine under Maryland law. The key factor in this decision was that the tickets were dispensed from a pre-printed roll of tickets that was inserted into the machines by the manufacturer. Thus, the element of chance was in the tickets and not in the machine,” the Maryland Department of Legislative Services wrote last year in its Legislators’ Guide to Commercial Gambling in Maryland.
State lawmakers responded by explicitly banning all gaming machines but counties where such gray gaming machines were operating at the time of the statute’s passing were grandfathered in and exempted from the law. Electronic instant gaming machines primarily operate in Anne Arundel and Calvert counties, the latter being home to Chesapeake Beach.
Maryland lawmakers further amended their gaming laws in 2012 when the state authorized six commercial casinos with Las Vegas-style slots and tables. Sports betting, in-person at the casinos and online, was added in 2021.
Chesapeake Beach Gaming
Several restaurants and bars along the bay have electronic gaming machines.
The Rod ‘N’ Reel Resort offers electronic gaming 24 hours a day. Traders Restaurant and Abner’s Crabhouse also have game rooms featuring electronic pull tabs.
Bruce Wahl was elected the next mayor of Chesapeake Beach on Tuesday over longtime Councilwoman Valerie Beaudin. As mayor, Wahl will be responsible for lobbying state lawmakers on his constituents’ behalf.
With strong opposition to gaming expansion, Wahl is likely not to ask the town’s state representatives to initiate legislation that would allow Las Vegas-style gaming to come to Chesapeake Beach.
