Part of what drew Caesars Entertainment Corp. to Baltimore is their customers. Many of them are already here.

The company’s “Total Rewards” loyalty program has more than 40 million members. About 1 million are in the Baltimore area.

Caesars president, CEO and chairman Gary Loveman said that familiarity with the brand — Caesars owns casinos under the Harrah’s, Caesars, Horseshoe and several other flags — would give Harrah’s Baltimore a foothold. It would also, Loveman said, allow the casino to use deals to lure Total Rewards members from other parts of the country to Baltimore.

Caesars wants the “VIP customer,” Loveman said.

“In every American market, we want to be home to the VIP customer,” he said. “It will be our strategy that we will have a higher proportion of VIP customers” than other casinos in the area.

The view in the rendering above shows one of two entrances, this one at the corner of Russell and Bayard streets. This is roughly the view you would get driving north on Russell toward downtown.

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The Prince George’s County Council advanced a bill Tuesday that would ban slot machines from the county.

The bill cleared a committee vote 3-0 and still faces a vote of the full council. The legislation, as The Washington Post reports, could put County Executive Rushern Baker in a tough spot in Annapolis. Banning slots could take a bargaining chip off the table for Baker in his dealings with legislative leaders.

Further complicating the situation, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Prince George’s County Democrat, has supported bringing gambling to Rosecroft Raceway in Oxon Hill.

Penn National Gaming Inc., the owner of Rosecroft, is gearing up for a big push in the General Assembly to bring casino gambling to the track. The gaming company, which also owns Hollywood Casino Perryville in Cecil County, released a pair of studies last week that touted billions of dollars in potential economic impact and tax revenue a mega-casino at Rosecroft would have on the county and state.

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Hollywood Casino Perryville is one year old — well, one year and four days old — and those 12 months of slot machine gambling in Maryland left me with too much material to shoe-horn into Friday’s story on how the Cecil County casino is growing up.

Here are a few more tidbits:

Perryville general manager Bill Hayles said he would “love to” have a conversation with lawmakers about lowering Maryland’s 67 percent tax on slot machine revenue.

“A 67 percent tax rate obviously minimizes the reinvestment you can put back into your property, when you’re only taking 30 cents out of the dollar and then you have to pay the light bill and wages,” he said. “It’s not like Atlantic City at an 8 percent tax rate where they can give back a lot more into their properties and their customers. So, we’re kind of at a disadvantage at that tax rate.”

Atlantic City and Nevada are indeed in the single digits with their tax rates — Nevada casinos pay just 6.75 percent on slots revenue — and because of that, those areas get the big, glitzy casinos with all the extra amenities. Maryland, however, is not alone on the high end of the tax spectrum.

Here are the tax rates in other gambling states nearby (data from the American Gaming Association):

Delaware: 57.79 percent

Pennsylvania: 55 percent

West Virginia: 54.14 percent

New York: 66.53 percent

“I think there’s a recognition that the mid-Atlantic region is a very high-tax region,” said James Karmel, a gaming analyst and associate professor of history at Harford Community College. “But I think Maryland’s 67 percent is particularly problematic for growing a successful casino industry here in the state.”

The tax rates on table games are much lower, and that’s a debate you’ll likely see in the 2012 session as lawmakers press to get a referendum on the November ballot.

Those table games change the casino clientele. Right now, according to Perryville’s marketing director Marc DeLeo, the crowd skews a little older, and a little more female. Table games bring in younger gamblers and more men.

Hayles and DeLeo also said they scout other casinos in the area to see what they’re offering and how they’re luring in gamblers. Both veterans of the Atlantic City market, where such visits were once taboo, they said casino executives have softened to the practice.

“We competitive shop, sure. It’s part of the business,” Hayles said. “And I know that we get shopped as well by the Delaware people. We’re happy to have them here.

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Developer Patrick Turner is working with a mega resort and casino company to win the Baltimore gaming license and build a slots parlor south of M&T Bank Stadium.

Turner attended the state slots commission meeting Wednesday with Jim Seay, another partner in the venture. The pair declined to comment then, but Seay sent a statement later that night confirming the group’s interest in the license.

The full statement is as follows:

Our local development team, which includes MGM, was certainly working diligently towards the anticipated submittal date. Our team has invested significantly in the process in both time and expense. We respect the decision to extend the bid date and are hopeful that during the extension an effort is made to make the overall business model more attractive to the investment community.

MGM is one of the biggest names in Las Vegas, with the massive MGM Grand rising on the south end of the strip. Beyond that, the company  owns 14 other gaming properties, including big names like Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and The Mirage.

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Slot machines have been pumping millions into Maryland’s coffers since the first terminals were opened to the public Sept. 27. But table games, which will certainly be debated during the 2012 legislative session and likely with more fervor than they were this year, may not be such a safe bet for the state.

Tropicana Casino and Resort had the worst April of any of the 11 casinos in Atlantic City, which altogether didn’t have a great month. In AC casino terms, that means $289.4 million in revenue from slots and table games, down from $311.5 million a year ago, according to the Press of Atlantic City.

So, what ails the Trop?

“We ran very unlucky,” Mark Giannantonio, Tropicana’s outgoing chief executive officer, told the newspaper.

He said one blackjack player won $5.8 million at high-stakes tables in April.

“If it hadn’t been for bad luck at the tables, we would have had a good month,” Giannantonio said.

Table game revenues were down 54 percent, to $3.2 million. And blackjack tables actually lost money, some $1.86 million, according to a New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement report.

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Maryland can’t get its slot machines in fast enough. Pennsylvania, it seems, has the opposite problem.

The owners of Mount Airy Casino Resort have won approval from state regulators to actually reduce the number of slot machines by 150, to 2,275.

It seems the resort in the Poconos is suffering from a microcosm of the problem Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino (who is, as I type this, going over the results of the test run at what will be Maryland’s second casino) warned us about in September. He stopped by The Daily Record just days before Hollywood Casino Perryville opened in Cecil County.

“At some point in time, everybody is going to start cannibalizing from everybody else,” Martino said. “Certainly that’s what you’re seeing in Atlantic City. Atlantic City is distressed. Their numbers are down significantly.”

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The pro-slots groups in Anne Arundel County are maintaining their lead as the results roll in.

With 79 of 197 precincts reporting, 56 percent of voters said “Yes” to the zoning developer David Cordish plans to build the state’s largest casino next to the Arundel Mills shopping mall.

There were 46,784 “Yes” votes cast to 36,841 “No” votes.

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With just five precincts in, supporters of building the state’s largest casino in Anne Arundel County are leading at the polls.

With just five of the 197 precincts reporting, the ballot measure is 55 percent Yes, 45 percent No — good news for developer David Cordish, who plans to build the casino if the ballot measure wins approval.

Those are early — very early — numbers. So stay with us through the night and well post new totals as they roll in.

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The war of words between The Cordish Cos. and opponents of its Anne Arundel County casino came down to this on Wednesday — will the casino be in the Arundel Mills shopping mall, or at the mall?

Cordish’s opponents, including the Maryland Jockey Club and Penn National Gaming, have indicated in television ads the slot machines would actually be inside the mall. Lately, they’ve used a newspaper’s paraphrasing of a statement made by Larry Tom, Anne Arundel County director of planning and zoning, to say the casino and the mall will be connected.

(My blog post on Wednesday elicited an e-mail response within two hours from the Stop Slots group, asserting once more that the casino will be in the mall, and using the Gazette article as proof.)

Not so, said Tom in a Cordish press release sent to reporters Wednesday.

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Developer David Cordish and his supporters in Anne Arundel County have a slim lead in the campaign to win zoning approval for a casino next to the Arundel Mills shopping mall, according to a poll released Wednesday.

But, that edge may not be enough, according to the pollster, Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies Inc.

The poll found 48 percent of Anne Arundel County voters support the mall-side casino plan (or, rather, the zoning that would allow Cordish, who holds a gaming license, to move ahead with development of the Maryland Live! Casino) while 45 percent said they would vote against it. Seven percent were undecided.

Despite the lead, analysis done by Gonzales said Cordish’s side will need to flip more voters to its side by Nov. 2.

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