Home / Poker News April 2013 / Pennsylvania Moves on Internet Gambling
Pennsylvania Moves on Internet Gambling
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2013-04-24 08:24
The state of Pennsylvania has long been poaching customers away from new Jersey’s Atlantic City – one of the reasons why Garden State lawmakers decided to turn to online gambling/poker a couple of months ago. Apparently however, Pennsylvania is now considering its own push to legalize online poker and gambling. State Representative Tina Davis introduced a bill on Monday to the House Gaming Oversight Committee, which would make
online poker and certain forms of online gambling legal. No fewer than 11 other lawmakers have thrown their support behind the initiative as co-sponsors.
If approved, the bill, HB 1235, will go on to be heard and voted on by the House of Representatives.
HB 1235 isn’t exactly a potential license for all interested parties to flow into the state and to start offering online gaming to the masses. It favors already set-up businesses with sturdy roots in the brick and mortar gambling scene. As a matter of fact, only operators who already have Pennsylvania slot machine licenses will be allowed to apply. While the bill does not limit legalization to online poker, it does restrict a few chance-based games like the lottery, keno, bingo, and a pool of games defined as “small games of chance”.
The bill will require the operator as well as the player to have an actual physical presence within the state, which means that players will have to apply for their online accounts in person, and the operator’s brick and mortar facility.
In its current form, the bill is an amended version of its former self. Among the changes introduced, the most important are the significant reduction of the one-time licensing fee from $16 million+ to about $5 million and the tax-rate reduction on gross gaming revenue from 45% to 28%. The bill apparently also leaves open the possibility of inter-state compacts.
