Quest for more table games - which could cut tax revenue

Four months after it opened on Penn's Landing, SugarHouse already was asking the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board for permission to add 14 table games.

The reasons were pretty obvious: By the end of February, SugarHouse - with only 43 table games, fewest among the state's 10 casinos - had already vaulted into the top five for table-games revenue from poker, blackjack, and so on.

In addition, the casino would get to keep more of the money. The state taxes table-games revenue at 16 percent, slot-machine revenue at 55 percent.

Boosting profit via tables is a game lots of casinos seem eager to join. Since July, when table games debuted in the state, five other casinos, including Parx in Bensalem, Harrah's Chester in Delaware County, and Sands in Bethlehem, have ramped up their numbers while cutting back on the slots.

If the trend persists, gambling critics contend, casino operators will have found a way to skirt the intent of Pennsylvania's Gaming Act.

"Tax relief was the supposed justification for opening these casinos," said Paul Boni, a Philadelphia lawyer and board member for the national anticasino group Stop Predatory Gambling. "But now, we see that the industry does everything possible to avoid paying taxes.

"The casino owners are laughing all the way to the bank at the taxpayers' expense."

In the eight months since table games debuted, the number of tables has shot up from 562 to 842. Slots, on the other hand, numbered 24,903 in July, hit a peak of 26,916 in October, and were down to 26,592 last month.

Under the 2004 law that legalized slot-machine gambling, the state gets 55 cents of every dollar generated from a slot machine, money that goes primarily toward property-tax relief, the horse-racing industry, and towns that host casinos.

Of the 16 percent tax on table games, 14 percent goes into the state's general fund for a variety of uses; 2 percent goes to local governments.

By comparison, New Jersey has a 9.25 percent tax rate on 28,095 slots and 1,266 tables.

On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Budget Secretary Charles Zogby said gambling revenue would provide state residents with $776 million in property-tax relief this year. Of that, $164 million will go toward a tax- and rent-rebate program for seniors and the disabled.