Gaming Control Board

Legal and political delays in opening Philadelphia's two waterfront casinos are costing about $1.8 million a day in gross slots revenue, according to a state gaming official. Targets for the casinos' openings have been pushed back about a year because of fervent neighborhood opposition, disputes over riverbed construction rights, and jurisdictional squabbles. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania, which gets a 55 percent cut of the two slots parlors' take, stands to lose about $990,000 in tax revenue for every day the openings are delayed, according to the state Gaming Control Board.

Plans to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for tax relief may be thrown dramatically off schedule unless divided Gaming Control Board members resolve a nine-month-old standoff today. Slots licenses, scheduled to be awarded beginning this fall, would not be granted until late 2007 or early 2008 if board members fail to decide the relatively mundane question of how slot machines are to be sold to the new gambling halls. Board chairman Thomas "Tad" Decker and others hope the dispute will be resolved, keeping the board on course to license six racetracks in September and five stand-alone slots casinos in December.

A local group that wants to put up to 600 slot machines and 50 table games at the Valley Forge Convention Center can go ahead with its plan after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the venue fit the definition of an established resort hotel under the state's gaming law. In a 3-2 decision, the state court ruled in favor of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board's May 2009 decision to award one of two casino resort licenses to Valley...

Pennsylvania's gaming board today announced a staggered schedule for testing and unveiling table gambling at state casinos, allowing some table gaming to fully open beginning July 8. The Gaming Control Board said the procedure will begin with an eight-hour test period, with board personnel determining whether each casino is ready. If the conditions are met, each casino will go live with table games two days later, allowing one "down day" for any issues to be addressed. Three teams of Gaming Control Board personnel will be available.

Tuesday's article about revenue from table games at Pennsylvania casinos included incorrect information provided by the state Gaming Control Board. The tax rate on table-games revenue will decrease to 14 percent from 16 percent effective early July 2012. The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357)

Describing it as a casino "like no other in Southeastern Pennsylvania," the chief executive of Valley Forge Casino Resort gave a walking tour of the interior of the nearly completed gaming and entertainment venue Tuesday, about a month in advance of its March 31 official opening. Unveiled were the names and themes of the resort's four new sit-down restaurants, still under construction (Pacific Prime, Viviano, Valley Tavern, and Nosh Deli); its three micro-restaurants (Asianoodle, Italian Market, and American Grill)

CLOSE, BUT no cigar, Philadelphia. In the ongoing pingpong game that is gaming reform legislation, the state Senate approved a revised bill that would restore zoning power over the casinos to the city. The bill was sent back to the House, where it stalled when further provisions were requested. The upshot: The bill is stalled until the Senate returns after the November election. Some have suggested that it's no conicidence that the grindingly slow process associated with this gaming reform bill, and the painful back-and-forth between House and Senate that has been going on for weeks, has now frozen the bill until it's too late to have an impact on the election.

HARRISBURG - A top official in the state attorney general's office was picked Friday to be chairman of the state Gaming Control Board, as Gov. Corbett selected a career prosecutor from a law enforcement agency that has spent considerable time investigating the board. Bill Ryan was Corbett's top deputy when the Republican governor was state attorney general. A former two-term Delaware County district attorney, Ryan also spent four months this year as acting attorney general after Corbett became governor in January.

Mayor Street yesterday named three people to head a task force that will develop a slots plan that the city will eventually present to the state Gaming Control Board. The Gaming Control Board will award licenses and determine the placement and design of two slot parlors in Philadelphia, irrespective of existing zoning, building and design codes. The city can only offer its advice. Street's announcement suggests he is gearing up an effort aimed at persuading the board to take local wants and desires into consideration.

Philadelphia Park racetrack, whose owners advocated the expansion of gambling in Pennsylvania for more than a decade, has cleared the extensive background investigations of the state's Gaming Control Board and should receive a license this month to bring up to 5,000 slot machines to Bensalem. The Gaming Control Board, in a hearing on the track's casino-license application, said yesterday they found nothing objectionable in the backgrounds of the track's ownership, or its financial and operational history.

LET THE hooting and hollering begin. Thursday and Friday, the Gaming Control Board will hear testimony from nearly 75 people in two days of public hearings on the second casino license to be awarded in Philadelphia. Six developers are vying for the chance to open the casino, and although tempers and emotions may not be running as high as the first time around, when Philadelphians were grappling with what impact two casinos might wield on the city and its neighborhoods, this week's hearings are hardly expected to be hushed, either.

Once in awhile something gets dropped into the state legislative hopper more interesting than the usual bridge-naming and nonsense. Take Rep. Paul Clymer's bill to address the public pension crisis by charging casino-goers a $2 cover charge. Yeah, I know, nobody going gambling wants to start with a sure loss. But the pension thing is real ugly and getting uglier every year. So the Bucks County Republican, long a gambling opponent, wants each patron entering any of the state's 11 casinos to take one (well, actually give two)

In an effort to expand its reach as regional casino competition intensifies, Harrah's Chester Casino and Racetrack becomes Harrah's Philadelphia Saturday. The name change, part of a rebranding that includes nongambling offerings, has everything to do with the casino's reaching a broader audience, and nothing to do with distancing it from its host city, said Harrah's general manager Ron Baumann. "It's all about how you define the market. Philly is the market we are after," he said during a tour of the casino this week.

HARRISBURG — The state House of Representatives has approved a bill to hold a statewide auction to finally award the license that was yanked from the Foxwoods Casino project in South Philadelphia, but the measure is likely to hit a legislative brick wall once it lands in the Senate. On Wednesday, the House voted, 140-48 to open up the auction for the coveted license for a casino anywhere in the state, with bidding starting at $65 million. The state Gaming Control Board would have the ultimate say over where, and to whom, the new casino should go. If the bill were to continue gaining legislative traction, it could result in Philadelphia losing its right to a second casino under the state gaming law passed in 2004.

The license that was revoked for the ill-starred Foxwoods Casino project in South Philadelphia could soon be up for grabs - with bidding starting at $65 million. Pennsylvania legislators in the House are poised to approve legislation as early as Tuesday to hold a statewide auction for the coveted license. The minimum bid, according to the legislation, would be $65 million, and the state Gaming Control Board would have the ultimate say over where, and to whom, the new casino should go. "This would let the free market determine what price we would get for the casino," said state Rep. Curt Schroder, a Republican from Chester, the bill's sponsor.

HARRISBURG — The license that was revoked for the ill-starred Foxwoods Casino project in South Philadelphia could soon be up for grabs — with bidding starting at $65 million. Pennsylvania legislators in the House are poised to approve legislation as early as Tuesday to hold a statewide auction for the coveted license. The minimum bid, according to the legislation, would be $65 million, and the state Gaming Control Board would have the ultimate say over where, and to whom, the new casino should go. "This would let the free market determine what price we would get for the casino," said Rep. Curt Schroder (R., Chester)

Philadelphia developer Bart Blatstein wants to build a casino, entertainment and retail complex on the property he now owns along Callowhill Street between Broad and 17th and turn the iconic Inquirer/Daily News building into a hotel. Stretching over three blocks, the development will be anchored by the only downtown casino in a "top five major city," Blatstein said, and will be a major economic engine in North Philly. The project depends on Blatstein securing the state casino license that is available because of the failure of Foxwoods casino to develop its site along Columbus Boulevard near Tasker.

LAST WEEK, the State Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Foxwoods Casino over the revocation of its gaming license in the city. This opens up a boxful of questions about the fate of the last remaining gambling license in the state and whether it should go to a second city casino or be open for bids from around the state. Frankly, although that's a question that will have a big potential impact on the city, the Legislature should take its time deciding this. Meanwhile, we hope it'll also consider an even bigger question about the spoils of the gaming act, prompted by the latest revenue report from the state Gaming Control Board.

An African American employee who claims that his race and pro-union leanings cost him his job at the SugarHouse Casino has hand-delivered a petition to get it back. Cory Ballard, 25, who made $13 an hour plus tips as a player services agent the last nine months, was accompanied by about a dozen SugarHouse employees and Bishop Dwayne Royster of the Living Water United Church of Christ in Kensington as he delivered the petition. It was signed by two-thirds of his old department and given to casino representatives Tuesday at management's office at 1080 N. Delaware Ave., directly across from the casino.