A URL at the bottom of Maryland license plates made to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 and the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner now links to a landing page for an online casino in the Philippines.

The link on the plates originally led to a website about the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, providing commission for every purchase to the anthem bicentennial-focused nonprofit Star Spangled 200 Inc.

The anthem was inspired by the 1814 siege of Fort McHenry during the war, witnessed by the song’s writer Francis Scott Key from a truce ship in Baltimore Harbor.

As of August 2022, the URL still led to that site, starspangled200.org, according to the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine.” 

By December 2022, however, the domain had lapsed, allowing the Fafa855 online casino’s Philippines branch to jump on the URL. Now, that address redirects to a landing page advertising the casino.

The URL discrepancy went unnoticed to the general public until a user in the Maryland subreddit discovered the new landing page.

“I was never a fan of having a plate celebrating the War of 1812, but I’m even more upset now that I (and tons of other Marylanders) are driving advertisements for international online gambling,” user libdd posted.

There are about 798,000 War of 1812 commemorative plates in circulation. The plates were standard-issue from 2010 until September 2016, when the current plates featuring the Maryland flag were released.

The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration is working to fix the issue.

“The MVA does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL, and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue,” the state agency told WTTG-TV.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.