Pa. lawmakers are still taking bets on gambling

Consider some of the following numbers.

In 2018, Pennsylvania’s 12 commercial casinos raked in a cool $3.2 billion. That’s billion with a B.

That represented a 1 percent increase over the year before, some $22 million.

It was the fourth straight year that casino revenue in the state increased. Pennsylvania now takes in more money from casinos than any other state, with the exception of Nevada, home to Las Vegas.

Atlantic City? Fuhgeddaboutit!

And still Pennsylvania wants more.

This week Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino dove into the lucrative – and growing – sports betting field. Harrah’s casino in Chester rolled out what it is calling “The Book,” a 4,000-square-foot sports betting facility with enough flatscreen TVs to make Best Buy jealous.

They are not the first. Sports betting already is in full force at four other casinos in the Keystone State. It’s no wonder Harrah’s joined the others and ponied up the $10 million fee for license that Pennsylvania is requiring before granting a sports betting license.

In the first full month of betting at three casinos – Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course near Hershey, Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, and SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, the take came to $16 million.

And that does not include Parx Casino in Bucks County, which opened its sports book in January.

Make no mistake, Pennsylvania — in particular our Legislature — has an addiction problem. We’re not talking about the heroin and opioid scourge taking such a horrific toll on so many of our communities.

We’re talking about gambling.

Every time this state is pinched for revenue — and when’s the last time it was not pinched for revenue? — you can bet your bottom dollar our esteemed legislators will look for a way to increase legal gaming in the state. Pardon the pun, but the numbers don’t lie.

Harrisburg, where both the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans, has an aversion to taxes. They have consistently railed against proposals floated by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf to seek a new severance tax on the state’s natural gas industry? Hike the personal income and state sales taxes, as Wolf once suggested? Republicans nearly doubled over in guffaws.

The state’s dalliance with legal wagering dates back to 1971 with the establishment of the Pennsylvania Lottery and the Daily Number. That funding was designated for senior citizen services. That single nightly drawing quickly morphed into a bewildering array of choices offered twice a day.

In 2004 the state legalized slot machines in casinos. That was followed just a few years later by table games, in a sense full-blown casinos.

It still couldn’t slake the state’s thirst for gambling revenue. In 2017 gaming was expanded to airports and truck stops.

Now it’s sports betting. After all, why allow all that revenue to simply drive across our borders, to Atlantic City in New Jersey, or down to Delaware Park or Dover Downs in Delaware? It’s not like these people were only going there to buy cheap liquor.

Don’t kid yourself that this is some kind of victimless vice. There are plenty of losers when it comes to gambling, hopeless addicts who continue to feed the slots or poker tables, leaving broken families and a serious strain on social services in their wake.

Ironically, Pennsylvania is coming off a rare year of fairly tranquil budget negotiations. Gov. Wolf, still wincing from the bruises in his first few years of grappling with the Legislature, was not talking about tax hikes last summer.

But that likely had as much to do with the fact that he – along with every member of the House and half the Senate – was running for re-election.

He won’t have that luxury when he delivers a budget address in a few weeks.

But then again, he also will have the knowledge that he will not be running for office again.

It will be interesting to see what initiatives he proposes — and how he plans to pay for them.

We already know where the Legislature’s heart lies.

In fact, you can bet the house on it.