A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, Douglas Harbach, has confirmed that three more Pennsylvania casinos last Friday formally applied for operator’s licenses to provide online gambling services to residents of the state – just days before an initial 90-day application window was about to expire on Monday, 16th July 2018.
The three casinos are as follows –
- Parx Casino, in Bensalem
- Mt. Airy Casino Resort, in Mt. Pocono and
- Stadium Casino (under construction) in South Philadelphia
All three casinos filed the paperwork required to apply for an operator’s license and by Friday, were the only ones to put up the initial $10 million application fee which allows them to offer gambling across all three categories that have been newly regulated by the state. These include peer-to-peer interactive games such as poker; non peer-to-peer interactive table games and interactive games that simulate slot machines.
A spokesperson for Pennsylvania based Penn National Gaming, Eric Schippers, revealed that although they are still disappointed with the state’s exorbitantly high tax rate, they have decided to proceed with online gambling in the hope that they can continue to work in order to bring the tax in line with what other gaming jurisdictions around the world have instituted.
Lawmakers in Pennsylvania imposed very high fees and taxes on the nascent state online gambling industry that requires operators to pay the same rates as land casinos of 54 percent of GGR on slot games and 16 percent on table games as well as license fees of up to $12 million.
