HARRISBURG, Pa. – Philadelphia could become the nation’s largest city with a casino – a distinction contingent upon slot-machine licenses to be awarded by Pennsylvania gambling regulators.
Lucrative licenses to run slot-machine gambling parlors in Pennsylvania were expected to be awarded Wednesday after state gambling regulators choose between projects proposed by casino giants, developers and politically connected investors.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will have difficult decisions to make, such as whether to award a slots license to a proposed project near the historic Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg.
The gaming board can award as many as 11 permanent slots licenses, each allowing as many as 5,000 machines. Six licenses are earmarked for the state’s horse-racing tracks, while 13 applicants are competing for the remaining five stand-alone licenses.
If the seven-member gaming board cannot agree upon which applicant should get one or more of the licenses, the members may vote to table some of the applications and deal with them at a later date.
So far, two racetracks – Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs and Philadelphia Park – already have opened slots parlors under conditional licenses, while racetracks in Chester and near Erie are expected to open slots parlors in the next two months.
Gov. Ed Rendell rejuvenated a 25-year drive to legalize casino-style gambling in Pennsylvania by promising that slots revenue would help reduce property taxes and revive the state’s declining horse-racing industry. The law passed in 2004 authorized up to 61,000 slot machines at 14 sites.