Pennsylvania's first slots parlor license hopefuls might have to wait another year, reportedly said Tad Decker, the head of the state's Gaming Control Board. Although Pennsylvania's first slots operations are scheduled to begin this fall, a disagreement between two board members has put slots licensing into jeopardy – at least temporarily. Their argument concerns slots distribution regulations, namely whether or not slots operation regulations should apply on a state or regional basis.
Since the gaming board has less than a month left to benefit from its two-year exemption from the regular state review, if no agreement regarding the aforementioned issue is reached by that date, the entire process would be postponed for at least another year.
Twenty gaming interests have already applied for a slots distributor license. The gaming board is expected to issue licenses for a total of 14 slots parlors and 61,000 slot machines, likely to generate gambling revenues of as much as $3 billion. Accordingly, since local legislators reportedly decided to allocate one third of future slots revenues to tax cuts, the slot machine issue is becoming very important.
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