A Pennsylvania state government committee has authorized an online gambling bill, the very first tangible forward progress any state legislature has produced on this front in years.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Gaming Oversight Committee voted 18-8 in favor of committee chairman John Payne’s HB 649, which would authorize the state’s licensed casino operators to branch out into on-line poker and casino gambling.
The bill would also permit the addition of slot machines at racetrack operators’ OTB venues and in the state’s six international airports. An amendment that would have allowed video gaming terminals at restaurants and bars was struck in the bill prior to the vote.
HB 649’s subsequent stop will probably be a vote by the full Home membership. Assuming that vote is favorable, the state Senate would then have to give their stamp of approval before Gov. Tom Wolf would have the opportunity to sign the bill into law. Should the Senate amend the bill prior to voting, HB 649 would have to return towards the Home for a second vote before arriving at Wolf’s desk.
HB 649 may also take a much less circuitous route to passage thanks to the state’s four-months-and-counting delay in passing a spending budget for fiscal 2016. Assuming consensus may be reached, HB 649 could be included among the budget’s myriad income generating schemes, after which both legislative bodies will need to cast their vote in favor of the package and Wolf will have to add his John Hancock.
Payne’s bill is not the state’s only on-line gambling legislative work but it’s the preferred option of the state’s pro-online casino operators. Payne’s bill calls to get a 14% tax on on-line gambling income, a much more affordable price than the 54% proposed by the state Senate (mimicking the state’s industry-high 55% tax on land-based slots revenue). However, Payne’s tax rate is far from carved in stone and some negotiating is expected as HB 649 moves forward.
Also expect some pushback from anti-online opponents. Whilst the majority of the state’s licensed casino operators are stated to be either pro-online or neutral, the outlier occurs to be Sands Bethlehem, whose boss Sheldon Adelson is bankrolling the Coalition to Quit Web Gambling (CSIG), which only final month launched a fresh crusade to paint Payne as an ISIS member sent to wage biowarfare on ‘Murica with his toxic online gambling virus.
Regardless of its eventual fate, HB 649’s committee approval marks the very first concrete step forward for any state-level on-line gambling legislation since New Jersey launched its intrastate on-line gambling market in late 2013. A California state Assembly committee authorized an online poker shell bill earlier this year, but the bill was utterly devoid of specifics and also the vote was simply a procedural work aimed at maintaining the state’s squabbling stakeholders at the negotiating table.