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\tIn the Maryland casino wars, the latest weapon of choice is the billboard.<\/p>\n
\tA Maryland Live billboard was clearly visible over the shoulder of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) as she stood outside the unfinished Horseshoe Baltimore a few weeks ago to unveil a street sign that read \u201cCasino Way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBy then, the 12-by-24-foot provocation, which read, \u201cOver $10 billion in payouts and counting,\u201d had been there for a year. It was one more way for the Arundel Mills casino to thumb its nose at its new rival from 12 miles away.<\/p>\n
\tHorseshoe Baltimore, owned by Caesars Entertainment, at one point responded by dispatching a truck with a Horseshoe billboard to drive around Maryland Live\u2019s parking lots.<\/p>\n
\tOn Friday, Horseshoe got its chance to show what Maryland Live is really up against. Live has an Asian gambling area? So does Horseshoe, complete with a hand-carved waterfall relief and custom carpet inlaid with orioles and black-eyed Susans (the official state bird and flower, respectively). Live has a poker room? So does Horseshoe, and it\u2019s going to be a stop on the World Series of Poker circuit.
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\tAnd although Maryland Live \u2014 owned and operated by the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. \u2014 might have hundreds more slot machines, only Horseshoe has stocked outdoor smoking areas with them.<\/p>\n
\tThe real competition for customers begins at 9 p.m. Aug. 26, when Horseshoe opens to the public.<\/p>\n
\tIn the storied annals of casino rivalries, the Live-Horseshoe contest is small-time. It has yet to achieve the heights of one-upmanship that has lined the Vegas Strip with a copy of the Statue of Liberty, a pyramid, fake pirate ships and one ginormous resort after another.<\/p>\n
\tBut even along Route 295, the consequences for losing are high.<\/p>\n
\tOne regional monopoly after another has crumbled as casinos have proliferated. Delaware\u2019s Dover Downs has seen its revenue fall since 2006, when the first casinos in Pennsylvania opened. Pennsylvania, in turn, posted its first decline in slot revenue in fiscal year 2013, due in part to increased competition from new casinos in Ohio and Maryland. And Atlantic City, Vegas\u2019s former rival, now faces the prospect of four casinos closing by year\u2019s end and the loss of thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n
\tMaryland has four casinos. Horseshoe and MGM National Harbor, which is scheduled to open in 2016, will make that six. Two neighboring states also have casinos, including Pennsylvania, which now generates the second-largest amount of gambling revenue in the nation, behind Nevada.<\/p>\n
\tIn the new regional gambling wars, proximity has become the ultimate trump card. To overcome that, \u201cyou\u2019ve got to give a reason to drive past another casino to go to your casino,\u201d said David Schwartz, author of \u201cRoll the Bones: The History of Gambling,\u201d and director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\n\tPoker dealers get training in Poke Room at Horseshoe on Friday. (Yue Wu\/The Washington Post)
\n\tFrom Maryland Live\u2019s opening in 2012 as the nation\u2019s third-largest commercial casino, it has had a relatively easy time picking off Marylanders from casinos in Delaware, West Virginia, Philadelphia and Atlantic City. It controlled about 80 percent of the Maryland casino market in 2013, according to UNLV\u2019s gambling research center. But with Horseshoe\u2019s arrival, it will lose some of that geographic edge. A November 2013 study commissioned by the Maryland Lottery and Control Agency predicted that in 2016, Live\u2019s slots revenue could decrease by 16 percent and table game revenue by 25 percent. And that study didn\u2019t factor in the potential impact of MGM National Harbor, which will open at the other end of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt is playing chess on a different level,\u201d said Maryland Live\u2019s general manager, Rob Norton, who grew up in the industry.<\/p>\n
\tCasino operators have no illusions that what they are selling is unique, said Oliver Lovat, an international market expert based in London. Slots are slots are slots. Instead, they strive to distinguish themselves in other ways. This has lead to a perpetual arms race that over the decades has involved $1 steak dinners, royal tiger habitats and botanical gardens. These days, it is more likely to revolve around dueling rewards programs that give perks to players the more they play. Horseshoe claims it has an advantage in that area because their members can use their points at other Caesars properties.<\/p>\n
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