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.

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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.