Gambling panel begins work
HARRISBURG – For such a big deal, it was a rather small affair. When the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board met for the first time on Tuesday to usher in a multibillion-dollar industry based on the glamour of gambling, it did so with a Power Point presentation outlining the scope of the state’s newest bureaucracy.
There was little to show that the meeting marked the birth of 61,000 slot machines at 14 casinos, or that an industry that was expected to employ thousands, make billions, save horseracing, revitalize inner cities with casinos and give homeowners a tax break was to rise from this dark auditorium at the Pennsylvania State Museum.
Instead, the board’s seven politically appointed members cautiously predicted that casino licenses could be handed out as soon as the end of next year. It firmly warned that to keep out mobsters, everyone from caterers to launderers for the new casinos would be regulated, investigated and licensed.
And the board set about laying the groundwork for a new state agency that may employ as many as 148 workers, regulate a historically shady industry and have the power to make very, very rich the people to whom it grants casino licenses.
“Our job is not to place judgments on gambling but to implement it and make sure it’s as clean as possible,” said Thomas “Tad” Decker, the 58-year-old chairman of the gaming control board.
Decker spoke softly when he said the board would go forward with instituting gambling at a reasonable, but not slow, pace. His best guess, and those of the consultants hired by the state, is that the first slot licenses could be awarded in late 2005.
Those first licenses, Decker said, would surely go to the state’s existing racetracks, like Philadelphia Park in Bensalem. Then, in no determined order, licenses would be given to three or four racetracks yet to begin operations, such as a harness racing site in Beaver Falls, Beaver County.
Philadelphia is to get two casinos and Pittsburgh one. Another one or two licenses for standalone casinos will be awarded by the board. Finally, licenses will eventually hang on the walls of two resorts, one of which may be the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington.
Judging from the presence of dozens of gambling executives and lobbyists in dark, three-piece suits at Tuesday’s debut meeting, the licenses cannot be awarded soon enough. They will have to pay for them: for the racetrack and city casinos, $50 million for each license allowing 5,000 slot machines; for the resorts, which may operate only 500 machines, the price of a license is $5 million.
Those one-time license fees are only a drop in the bucket for an agency that is going to be handling billions of dollars each year. Most estimates are that when all the casinos are up and running, slots will ring up about $3 billion a year, one-third of which is to be used for property tax relief.
While board members at the inaugural meeting stressed that everything about setting up slots is still in the planning stages, there is no question that the gaming control board will be headquartered in Harrisburg. Decker said there is office space within walking distance of the Capitol that is promising for setting up shop.
It is also likely that the board will have to pay board managers more than the average state employee, in order, he said, to get the best people.
Rick Martinez can be reached at 717-705-6330 or rmartinez@calkins-media.com.