By GERALD NEILY
Baltimore was ignored when the high rollers came to the table with slots proposals earlier this year, but now the city has leapt out in front of the suburbs in the political race to build Maryland’s first major slot machine palace.

Baltimore Entertainment Group (BEG), which made a seemingly minor wager for 500 slot machines on the shores of the City’s Middle Branch, has surged into the lead over the high-profile slots players with suburban proposals, Magna Entertainment (at Laurel Raceway) and David Cordish (in Arundel Mills Mall) according to a report in today’s Baltimore Sun. BEG has now leveraged its initial bid of 500 machines into a formidable plan for 3,750, the maximum number allowed by voters in last year’s referendum.

Months ago no one would have bet on BEG to emerge triumphant over the politically-connected slots favorite Magna or Cordish, with his buckets of cash.

Magna has been the slots favorite for years, ever since they took over Frank DeFrancis’ interest in the Pimlico and Laurel racetracks, seemingly the natural places for “race-inos”. But their timing couldn’t have been worse. Just when the moment finally came to put their wager down for slots at Laurel, they went bankrupt and could not satisfy the state’s stiff down payment requirement.

Cordish thought he brought enough cash to the table to follow his own rules, betting on Arundel Mills Mall rather than a politically vetted site. But this has only rekindled the battle with gambling opponents and local communities that the referendum had intended to resolve once and for all.

Enter BEG .

BEG effectively sidestepped the stiff slots application fee, which killed Magna and seemingly put Cordish in command, by making a down payment for a mere 500 machines. But BEG put their wager on the Middle Branch site that Cordish rejected and Magna didn’t need, even though it is mere miles up the BW Parkway from Arundel Mills – a small hop for slots fans used to long trips to Charles Town and Dover (and even longer trips home when their pockets are emptied).

David Cordish has a long history of playing by his own rules. Though his headquarters is in Baltimore, most of his vast development portfolio is elsewhere. He has seldom been the first choice of local development officials, mostly coming in only to rescue previous Inner Harbor failures such as the Power Plant and Brokerage. Recently, Cordish publically criticized the City’s new $100 million plan to re-make Pratt Street as a greatly expanded shopping street. When else has a developer ever spoken against a city plan for a major new development? Certainly not Rouse, Streuver, Turner, Paterakis, Hale or Lipscomb.

But a modest 500 slot machine plan, with its small application fee, was enough to get BEG to the City bargaining table. The Middle Branch site is no longer an issue because it is specified by law. Having the state’s highest property tax rate is not a problem for BEG because the city owns the land. All it took was negotiation to expand the plan from 500 machines, hardly enough for a blip on the slot radar screen, to 3,750. The expected annual revenue to the city would be $25.4 million, less than the originally projected $36 million, but that’s what negotiation is all about.

Maybe this will be a lesson for Magna and Cordish, who no doubt thought they had seen everything. Maybe they preferred their own sites, and Cordish certainly had more cash, but for slots, the preferred financial climate in the suburbs is no match for a winning hand created by political consensus and negotiation.