Baltimore based company Cordish Cos. also recently submitted a plan to include 4,750 slots in a casino at Arundel Mills mall near BWI airport. If the plan is passed, the casino would be the state’s largest.

Ocean Downs and the Ann Arundel casinos would produce millions of dollars in much-needed state revenue.

Maryland state legislature should continue to support the slot’s referendum—passed during last November’s general election—as well as allow for the expansion of the state slots industry. Not only will slots’ revenue go towards state public education funds, but an increase in slot machines will create job opportunities, which are needed in the weak economy.

Currently, state legislators allocate about half of generated slots’ revenue estimated to be $600 million to the education budget. With Maryland’s education budget dwindling, slots could jumpstart a new wave of funding. It’s estimated that by 2012, the revenue could bring in aproximately $1.36 billion overall, half of which would go towards improving the education system.

In a letter last year from the Montgomery County BOE to Maryland BOE President James DeGraffenreidt, board members cited a budget shortfall of almost $600 million, the exact amount slots are expected to bring in. Slots revenue will obliterate the budget shortfall as well as create new money to contribute to the education budget.

The expansion of slots will also create more jobs. Slotsense, a online resource that backs Maryland’s slots referendum, estimates that a growth in slots will create over 3,500 direct career opportunities.

The increase in revenue and new jobs that slots will create prioritize them too highly to allow this opportunity for income to the Maryland budget to pass on.