State sets date for slot licenses
HARRISBURG – After over a half-year delay, state regulators on Thursday gave Sept. 27 as a near certain date for six racetracks – including Buck County’s Philadelphia Park – to be awarded licenses to open slots parlors. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board Chairman Tad Decker said at a bimonthly board meeting that with the dispute over slots suppliers resolved in late June, the board is now on track to award its first set of licenses to racetracks.
Awarding the licenses would kick off legalized gambling for the first time in Pennsylvania and open the spigot for gambling profits to begin accumulating for use in the long-awaited property tax relief.
“I can’t look into the crystal ball as much as I’d like to,” said Decker. “But, no, I don’t see anything obvious that’s going to delay us right now.”
Decker added that he’s heard three racetracks will open their slots parlors to the public by the end of the year, and one in the early spring. He gave no timeline on the remaining two and didn’t name any.
Washington County’s racetrack, The Meadows, the only sure racetrack in the Southwestern part of the state, is expected to open a temporary, 1,800-plus slot machine parlor to the public in the first quarter of 2007, said Tom Willer, the marking vice president for the racetrack’s parent company, Cannery Casino Resorts.
It appears that Bucks County’s Philadelphia Park in Bensalem will be among the earlier racetracks to open its slots parlor to the public. Frank McDonnell, general counsel for Greenwood Gaming, a corporate subsidiary of the company that owns Philadelphia Park, estimated the racetrack’s initial 2,000-slot machine facility would open in mid December.
The temporary slots parlor will open on the first two floors of the racetrack’s grandstand building until a permanent facility is built in what is now the parking lot, McDonnell said.
He added that the permanent facility will be able to accommodate up to the legal limit of 5,000 machines.
“The intent is to have a Las Vegas-type experience for people,” McDonnell said. “It will be pretty high quality design.”
Racetracks will be the first slots operators in the state to receive licenses – ahead of the casinos and resort facilities. Theirs will be conditional until all 13 operators receive permanent licenses, expected in December.
A seventh racetrack slots license is still up in the air because the location of the racetrack has not been determined. The Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission recently turned down two applicants in Beaver and Lawrence counties for a sole remaining racetrack license, which would have led to the award of a slots license.
Last year, Decker estimated that conditional slots licenses would be awarded to racetracks as early as December 2005. But a lengthy board squabble over the regulation of slot machine middlemen, called suppliers, effectively held up the operator licenses for a half a year.
Decker also addressed an issue bubbling between Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration and Republican lawmakers over a $10.4 million transfer into the gaming board to keep it afloat since in the inflow of gambling cash has not yet begun. Republicans are saying the cash transfer needs legislative approval.
Decker said the agency – which has been busy screening gaming applicants – desperately needed the money.
“We’d be closing next Friday,” he said. “We’re going to take the money rather than go out of business.”
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com