As Pennsylvania’s casinos expand, gaming industry grabs ear of Reschenthaler
WASHINGTON — Last May, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler sat alongside a group of casino industry officials and business advocates in the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Washington County, where he touted the industry’s local economic benefits and his interest in expanding gambling to truck stops and internet sites that appeal to millennials.
“When I talk to folks in DC about gaming, they’re always taken aback by the extent I’ve been involved,” Mr. Reschenthaler, R-Peters, told the audience gathered in a ballroom there.
This year, there should be no mystery.
Mr. Reschenthaler is helping rebuild the Congressional Gaming Caucus, a group of at least 30 House lawmakers, including 19 Democrats, who have pledged to regularly convene to discuss gaming industry issues and hear directly from companies.
He will co-chair the revived caucus with Rep. Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat representing
Las Vegas, with a goal of advancing the industry’s interests by highlighting what he sees as successes in Pennsylvania.
“It’s a huge economic generator that, for whatever reason, we completely underestimate in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Reschenthaler said in a recent interview. “We’re really gonna try to advocate for the gaming industry — and job creation through the gaming industry — from what we can do here.”
The caucus is one of hundreds of such groups in Congress that serve as doorways for advocacy organizations and special interests on Capitol Hill, said Jennifer Victor, a political science professor at George Mason University.
Lawmakers from Pennsylvania hold memberships on caucuses whose topics range from the quotidian to the niche to the intractable.
There is a caucus for candy, steel, propane, microbreweries, skin cancer, baseball and China. Lawmakers gather to learn more about shellfish and shipbuilding, asthma and Azerbaijan, burn pits and accounting.
The 600 or so caucuses vary in influence and purpose, said Ms.
Victor, whose 2013 book about caucuses analyzed why “legislators invest scarce time and resources into forming and maintaining voluntary groups that provide few obvious benefits.”
Caucuses have proliferated in recent years — despite a move by House Republicans to defund them in the 1990s — as a way to foster bipartisan goodwill by connecting over shared interests, she said.
“The caucuses provide this situation where members of Congress can interact with one another in a relaxed setting over a topic they both have voluntarily expressed interest in,” Ms. Victor said. “And it turns out, lots of members really enjoy that.”
For lobbyists, caucuses are a forum to talk directly to lawmakers and develop relationships with Congressional aides. “They’re looking for any inroad they can make into Congress,” she said. “Once you become the organization that staffers call to get information, you know you have a valuable ‘in.’”
The gaming industry, largely overseen by state governments, has been an industry without a home on Capitol Hill.
No Congressional committee directly handles gambling matters, so gaming lobbyists for years relied on the House caucus and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s influence as the Democratic Senate leader to keep their issues top of mind. Mr. Reid retired in 2017, and the House caucus went defunct.
At the same time, the industry has rapidly expanded in areas far from bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip, especially as financially strapped states searched for sources of revenue without raising income taxes.
“We’re looking at this first and foremost through the lens of basic education of why gaming matters,” said Chris Cylke, senior vice president of government relations for the American Gaming Association.
Pennsylvania, which approved a sweeping gambling expansion law in 2017, is now the largest gambling market outside of Nevada. The state, thanks to one of the highest gambling taxes in the country, collected $1.5 billion in taxes in 2018.
That taxes prompt grumbling
from the industry — Pennsylvania gaming machine revenue is taxed at 54% — while also allowing them to point to evidence of supporting local communities.
Big investment
At the Meadows last May — a “Get to Know Gaming” event sponsored by the gaming association — casino industry officials said about $90 million in casino revenues had been invested in Washington County.
The event marked the release of the “Casinos and Communities” report on Pennsylvania, which quoted Larry Maggi, chairman of the Washington County Board of Commissioners, comparing the regional importance of casinos to the discovery of coal and the steel industry’s heyday. Mr. Maggi did not respond to a message for comment.
Mr. Reschenthaler, as a Pennsylvania state senator, helped push a bill to expand electronic video gaming terminals to truck stops. That measure was approved with the 2017 gambling bill, persuading critics worried that the move would crimp lottery ticket revenue or hurt traffic to brickand-mortar casinos.
At the event, Tim Wilmott, then the CEO of Penn National Gaming, the Wyomissingbased casino operator that owns the Meadows, praised Mr. Reschenthaler. “He did great work for our industry while he was in Harrisburg, and it’s very pleasing to now know he’s in Washington D.C. at a critical time for our industry,” Mr. Wilmott said.
“Penn National was a huge ally that I had in the fight to expand gaming in the state,” Mr. Reschenthaler said at the event.
Representatives from the Meadows did not comment.
In the recent interview, Mr. Reschenthaler said he learned a lot at the panel. In the coming months, he expects the caucus to examine issues such as the legalization of sports betting, efforts to combat illegal gambling and the federal tax-reporting threshold on slot-machine jackpots.
Currently, the federal government taxes slot machine winnings over $1,200, a level set in 1977. The gaming industry argues inflation has increased that threshold to $5,000, which would ease the burden on casino operators who are forced to temporarily take the slot machines out of service while a tax form is filled out.
In the recent interview, Mr. Reschenthaler said he hopes to share the story of the Meadows with Congress.
“Just drive past it — you have Tanger Outlets, you have multiple hotels, you have a strip mall, numerous restaurants,” he said. The caucus “will provide a forum to make legislators aware of these and other benefits that gaming can have in their own districts.”