Pennsylvanian lawmakers work through the weekend on expanded gambling bill

Local Pennsylvanian media outlets reported over the weekend that state legislators are hard at work in a bid to meet a Monday deadline on the submission of concrete funding proposals for the state’s $32 billion budget agreed last week (see previous  report).

Most of the debate is around an expansion of state gambling (including online and DFS) in order to raise additional tax revenues.

Quoting informed sources, several media reports indicate that some important compromises have already been made, including an agreement to drop the controversial inclusion of video gaming terminals (VGTs) – a key stalling point in previous negotiations.

Instead, there is a new proposal to permit up to 10 strictly controlled and located ‘satellite’ land casinos operated by existing licence holders. These would have to pay between $7.5 million and $10 million in additional licence fees.

The contentious tax rate issue remains under negotiation, although some progress has been made to narrow the yawning gap between different proposals (see previous reports).

Apparently that gap has now been narrowed to a discussion on online gambling tax rates between 24 to 26 percent on slots, and 16 to 20 percent on table games and poker.

Whilst still high by market standards, these numbers do represent a very considerable reduction in some of the outlandish tax rates previously proposed – especially in the state Senate.

Other issues that are still being ‘vigorously’ debated include how many different brands an operator can use under a licence, and some finality on licence fees to be charged to state licensed operators who want to launch online activity.

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