More legal gambling in Pa.? It’s a sure bet
Whoever said there is no such thing as a sure bet probably has not spent much time in the Keystone State.
The temptation must have been too great.
For a while there, it appeared as if Pennsylvania’s love affair with gambling had cooled just a bit.
Fueled by blockbuster business in nearby New Jersey and Delaware in the latest state-sponsored foray into gaming – legal wagering on sports events – our friends in the Pennsylvania Legislature, who have never met a bet they didn’t like, decided to dip their toe in the water.
Then an odd thing happened. Not a lot. The state’s 13 gambling meccas did not exactly fall all over themselves looking to get in on sports betting. Slots? You bet. Table games? Roll the dice. But casinos seemed unusually reticent when it comes to what would seem like a very lucrative market, sports wagering. And for good reason. Getting in on the action is not cheap – even for the casino business.
Pennsylvania demands a $10 million fee up front for the privilege of offering a sports book in a state casino. And it doesn’t stop there. The Keystone State is taking a whopping 34 percent bite off the top on sports betting. Nevada, the original home of legal sports wagering in the U.S., wets its beak to the tune of a seemingly paltry 6.75 percent.
West Virginia takes a 10 percent hit. New Jersey has a tiered system of 8.5 percent for in-house betting, 13 percent for online wagering run by casinos and 14.25 percent for online betting handled by state racetracks.
So it was no wonder that casino moguls were reluctant to jump in the sports betting pool. At least at first. But things are changing. Parx Casino in Bucks County and Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course outside Harrisburg were the first to get in back in August.
Now Harrah’s in Delaware County is ready to take the leap.
The casino on the Chester waterfront plunked down the $10 million to offer sports betting.
The region’s residents will soon be able to bet legally on the Eagles, Phillies and other sports events.
Sports betting will now add to the booty that Harrah’s has kicked into the local and state economy. It is not a small number. Harrah’s went online in 2006. Since then the casino has raked in $36.1 billion in wagers and $32.6 billion in payouts, according to figures kept by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. Those clattering, clinking one-armed bandits, otherwise known as slot machines, have resulted in nearly $3 billion in revenue on their own.
More importantly, legalized gaming has resulted in a windfall for the state. Harrah’s has pumped more than $1.5 billion into state and local coffers. Its host agreement with the city of Chester has formed a lifeline for the struggling municipality.
But there is something unseemly about Pennsylvania’s increasing reliance on gambling to address its fiscal issues. And that is to say nothing of the social ills, the broken families and homes, that gambling habits leave in their wake.
Gov. Tom Wolf rode into the Governor’s Mansion on a promise of restoring education cuts that took place under his predecessor, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.
Wolf envisioned a new severance tax on the state’s natural gas business, as opposed to the “impact fee” put in place by Corbett, who not coincidentally had pledged not to raise taxes.
Then Wolf got serious. He presented a budget that included increases in both the personal income and sales taxes.
Republicans almost laughed themselves silly.
The result. Read our lips: No new taxes.
Instead, the Legislature continues to roll the dice. Sports betting? Bring it on. What’s the over-under on the state at some point in the near future once again finding itself in need of new revenue? We’ll take the under. And we’ll wager there is another form of gambling that has not yet been tapped by Pennsylvania.
Whoever said there is no such thing as a sure bet probably has not spent much time in the Keystone State.