Sen. Ron Watson withdrew Senate Bill 761 on March 13. It would have asked Maryland voters whether the General Assembly could authorize internet gaming licenses.
Six months later, the practical result is settled. No Maryland law authorizes online casino play, and no gaming question will appear on the November 3 ballot. The Department of Legislative Services (DLS) summed up current law in its 2026 fiscal notes: apart from sports wagering, other forms of online gaming “are not currently authorized in Maryland.”
The idea has failed in three consecutive sessions. Roll calls, fiscal notes and witness lists show where it stalled, who lined up on each side and what the calendar allows next.
The 2026 Bills Never Reached A Committee Vote
Watson, a Prince George’s County Democrat, introduced three Senate bills early in the session. SB 761 carried the referendum question, SB 885 wrote the licensing and tax rules for online casino games and online bingo, and SB 884 proposed a separate framework for internet poker.
The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee heard SB 885 and never voted on it, General Assembly records show. The poker bill’s hearing was canceled, and Watson pulled it the same day he withdrew the referendum bill.
The other chamber moved no further. Del. Caylin Young, a Baltimore City Democrat on Ways and Means, sponsored HB 1343, the successor to the 2025 House bill, and HB 1255, the House version of the referendum. The committee heard both and voted on neither.
The Baltimore Sun reported that the effort to legalize online casino games was all but dead for the session, and nothing changed before adjournment.
Article XIX Sends Every Expansion To A General Election
Maryland lawmakers cannot legalize a new form of commercial gambling on their own. Article XIX of the state constitution says the General Assembly “may only authorize additional forms or expansion of commercial gaming if approval is granted through a referendum, authorized by an act of the General Assembly, in a general election by a majority of the qualified voters in the State.”
Two constraints follow from that sentence, and between them they shape every bill filed since. A referendum has to be authorized by an act, so lawmakers have to pass something before voters ever see a question.
The vote also has to come at a general election, so the calendar rather than the legislature sets the earliest date a law could take effect. A bill filed in a year without one has to aim at a ballot at least a year off, which is why the 2025 versions targeted the 2026 ballot, their fiscal notes show.
That leaves sponsors two ways to write a bill. The first asks voters and settles the rules later. Sports betting went that way, according to the Department of Legislative Services: voters approved it in 2020 under Chapter 492, and the legislature passed the implementing law, Chapter 356, the next year.
The second way writes the whole framework, from licenses to tax rates, and lets it take effect only if voters agree. Every implementation bill since 2024 used that design. It front-loads the argument: a committee weighing one of those bills is weighing tax rates, license fees and a payout split alongside the question of whether to ask voters at all.
Only The 2024 House Bill Cleared A Chamber
The furthest any version traveled came two sessions ago. Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, a Howard County Democrat who chaired the Ways & Means Committee and is now running for Howard County executive, sponsored HB 1319, which the committee sent to the floor with amendments on March 14, 2024. Two days later the chamber passed the bill 92-43, General Assembly records show.
The 2025 session produced less. Atterbeary pre-filed HB 17 before it convened and Watson filed SB 340 after it did, and each drew a single committee hearing without a vote.
Lawmakers Took Sports Betting Money Without A Ballot Question
While the 2025 online casino bills sat in committee, the General Assembly found gambling revenue it could raise by statute. The Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2025 raised the tax on mobile sports wagering from 15% to 20% and sent the added money to the general fund. DLS expected that change to bring in $31.8 million in fiscal 2026.
Each Fiscal Note Carried A Different Price Tag
Every version came with a fiscal and policy note from DLS, and the table compares the main terms with the state special fund revenue each note projected for the last year of its five-year window, money that would mostly have gone to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund.
| Bill And Session | Sponsor | Operator Keeps Of Non-Live-Dealer Proceeds | Referendum Written For | Projected Revenue, Final Year | Furthest Step |
| HB 1319 (2024) | Del. Vanessa Atterbeary | 45% | November 2024 | $327.5 million in fiscal 2029 | Passed House 92-43 |
| HB 17 and SB 340 (2025) | Atterbeary and Watson | 45% | November 2026 | $321.4 million in fiscal 2030 | Committee hearings |
| HB 1343 (2026) | Del. Caylin Young | 45% | November 2026 | $489.7 million in fiscal 2031 | House hearing, March 5 |
| SB 885 (2026) | Sen. Ron Watson | 60% | November 2026 | $290.4 million in fiscal 2031 | Senate hearing, March 11 |
| SB 761 and HB 1255 (2026) | Watson and Young | Left to later law | November 2026 | None until rules pass | SB 761 withdrawn |
Operators would have kept 80% of live dealer proceeds under every implementation bill. The split on everything else is where the drafts diverged: Watson’s 2026 bill let operators keep 60% instead of 45%, and its note projected about $199 million less for fiscal 2031 than the one on the House bill did.
The notes also put a cost on the existing casinos. For both 2026 bills they assumed online play would cut video lottery terminal and table game revenue at Maryland casinos by 10.2% once the market matured, a drop of $192 million in fiscal 2031. Each implementation bill created a displacement fund for casino employees who lose their jobs.
Those figures rest partly on a study the Lottery and Gaming Control Agency commissioned from The Innovation Group, completed in 2023, and partly on internet gaming activity in other states.
That outside evidence matters because Maryland would not be starting from scratch. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan already license online casinos, and anyone tracking how other legislatures handle the same question can follow those bills and markets through GamingToday.
Labor and Problem Gambling Groups Filled the Opposition Column
Witness lists show who signed up, and on which side. At the House hearing on HB 1343, the unfavorable column included UNITE HERE Local 7, four other unions and the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO.
The Baltimore Sun reported that Maryland collected more than $1.6 billion from gambling in fiscal 2025, while residents lost an estimated $2.5 billion in a single year. Help is available through the Maryland Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling at 1-800-GAMBLER.
Regulators Wanted a Sweepstakes Ban And Got A House Vote
The Lottery and Gaming Control Agency pursued a different online fight, requesting HB 295, a departmental bill pre-filed on September 18, 2025, that would prohibit operating, conducting or promoting an “interactive game.”
The House passed HB 295 by 105-24 on March 20, 2026, and Budget and Taxation heard it without voting. A broader measure, the Maryland Illegal Online Gambling Enforcement Act, passed 135-1 three days later as HB 1226 and stopped in the same committee after a hearing.
What Has To Happen Before A 2028 Vote
Every General Assembly seat is on the November 3 ballot, because the constitution gives senators and delegates four-year terms on the same cycle. The winners take office when the 2027 session convenes.
Sports betting money has already reached those races. The Baltimore Banner reported that American Future, a super PAC funded through a group that sports betting companies seeded with $41 million, had spent close to $1.9 million in Maryland’s Democratic primaries.
The Sept. 14 State Roundup led with a Maryland Matters report that agencies were told to prepare fiscal 2028 requests with cuts of about 3%, and up to 10% for two dozen Cabinet-level agencies.
Any bill passed in either the 2027 or the 2028 session could aim for the ballot in 2028, the way HB 1319 aimed at the 2024 one.
The agency’s sweepstakes bill surfaced on the pre-filed list months before the session opened, and that list is where the next attempt would show first. The same outlet posts its state gaming coverage to its Facebook page between sessions.
If the next bill follows the path of the last ones, it will need a vote from Budget and Taxation, which has not taken one on online casino legislation in three sessions.
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