H271 shell bill fattened out by Pennsylvania committees

A 24-2 vote in favor of gambling bill H271 by the Senate Appropriations committee, and an 11-3 vote in favor by the Senate Community, Economic & Recreational Development Committee has progressed the gaming measure to a full Senate vote, which may come as early as Wednesday, reports indicate.

The bill details a prohibitively high online revenue tax rate of 54 percent on slots and table games, higher than those applied to terrestrial casinos of 54 and 16 percent respectively. Online poker revenues will be taxed at 16 percent, on a par with terrestrial rates, and there is a provision for multi-state liquidity.

Licenses for online casino and peer-to-peer gaming (poker) would cost $5 million a piece, with another $250,000 payable every five years thereafter. Existing terrestrial casinos will have a 90-day window to claim first dibs on those licenses, which it’s thought will be limited to twelve.

In terms of daily fantasy sports taxation, operators will fork out 12 percent on gross revenues. Licenses will cost the lesser of $50,000 or 7.5 percent of gross revenue.

Other provisions within the bill include a department of revenue-operated online lottery and tablet gaming at specific airports for a license fee of between $250,000 and $5 million based on the size of the airport.

This bill is not yet in its final form and the House is still in a position to propose amendments to the provisions.