Maryland's Hollywood Casino: don't waste your time

                        Maryland’s Hollywood Casino: Don’t waste your time

     Maryland’s first casino should be its last. Located in Perrysville, a short distance from interstate 95, it is conveniently located to waste your hard earned cash. One of the tightest casinos this author has ever encountered, the reasons will become obvious if you have the misfortune to stop in.  Maryland’s calculated failure has one distinguishing feature it will rip a hole in your wallet providing little pleasure in return. As an avid keno player the casino provides over two dozen multiple purpose machines containing several variants of the game. For the first few months of Hollywood’s operation keno paid out in the low range depending on the bet. Since then the machines have gone from low pay to no pay. Hundreds would descend weekly to play this ancient game, now only a trickle approach these machines. Slot machines have some unusual settings. On certain games you must play the maximum though the legend on the machine states otherwise. On penny machines you are forced to play dollar sums to win even a small amount. Gambling is always a risk, Maryland took the next step, it is called stealing. Casino personnel claim that the machines are set at 90% payout. This lie is compounded by the fact that the Free State taxes this gambling domicile at the rate of 67% of profits. If you can reconcile these two numbers please let me know the results. Monday through Thursday evenings there appears to be more workers than patrons. Large screens throughout Hollywood display past jackpot winners. If you look closer the screens recycle the same few winners from the past three to four months. In the event there is a technology that can increase the frequency of wins and jackpots to specific machines, it is being employed at this facility. To give these words credence one must play there a few times to capture the sense of the former statement. Hungry, the casino has two food outlets, a buffet and a grill. Initially the buffet’s price was set high and few came. More recently the price has trended down attracting some interest. Those who run the grill have chosen to sell the cheapest of the cheap foods at maximum prices. The hot dogs are the lowest quality on the market, which reflect many of the other food products served there. Proper decorum does not permit me to state many of the factual observations I have made about Maryland’s first casino. One thing for sure the facility will do everything it can to keep the winnings away from you as it robs you blind. Mark Davis MD, president of Healthnets Review Services. platomd@gmail.com