Pennsylvania awards third miniature casino license

In Pennsylvania, last week reportedly saw the firm behind the Mount Airy Casino Resort win the right to open the eastern state’s third miniature casino with the new facility now being planned for a site in central Lawrence County. According to a report from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper, Mount Airy #1 LLC had its bid of almost $21.2 million accepted by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Thursday and envisions locating the new enterprise within 15 miles of the city of New Castle and near Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio. “We are happy with their decision and we are going to do all we can to make them feel welcome,” Lawrence County Commissioner Dan Vogler reportedly told the newspaper. The new ‘Category Four’ facility will reportedly be permitted to operate up to 750 slots alongside a maximum of 40 gaming tables in exchange for agreeing to pay a 50% tax on all slot revenues alongside a 14% duty on table takings. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Mount Airy #1 LLC has become the third firm to receive one of the state’s new miniature casino license after early-January saw a subsidiary of Penn National Gaming Incorporated pay $50.1 million for the right to open a similar facility in York County. This was followed a few weeks later by Baltimore-based The Cordish Companies, which is currently in the process of developing its Live! Hotel and Casino Philadelphia, handing over some $40.1 million for the right to bring a comparable enterprise to Westmoreland County. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board hopes to auction ten new ‘Category Four’ licenses before the end of July featuring minimum $7.5 million bids as a way to help the eastern state fill its bulging $2.2 billion annual budget deficit. The result of wide-ranging gaming legislation signed into law by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf in October, the coming satellite casinos purportedly may not be located within 25 miles of any of Pennsylvania’s twelve existing casinos while local authorities were given the right to opt out of being considered as a home for any of the coming venues.