Pennsylvania citizens woke up $165 million richer today –well, there state coffers did anyway—as 10 Pennsylvania casinos ponied up the $16.5 million necessary to add table games –including poker—to their casinos. The deadline for the license fee was yesterday.

In addition to the $165 million up-front fee, the state will also reap the benefits of taxation from the table games –an estimated $140 million over the next year. PA residents can expect to see table games open to the public sometime in July according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Again according to the Post-Gazette, the Rivers Casino plans to add an impressive 62 table games, with 24 reserved for a separate poker-room.

Pennsylvania is just one of the states that has turned to legalizing or expanding gambling in order to fight budgetary constraints, and with PA adding over $300 million in revenue this year –in addition to the gambled money staying in-state instead of crossing the borders to New Jersey, Connecticut and other locales that already have legal gambling—the move has already paid off for PA officials, and will be a huge boost to PA residents whether they are for or against gambling.

Related posts:

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2. Online casinos left out of Barton Bill While poker advocates are giddy at the hearings taking place in Congress, online casinos are finding themselves left out in the cold, as HR 2366,...

Tags: Gambling in Pennysylvania, Pennsylvania Casinos

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Legal Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.