Pennsylvanian Senators introduce new online gambling bill
News on 10 Jun 2015
News on 10 Jun 2015
The four Pennsylvanian senators who have been preparing the ground for a new proposal to legalise online gambling (see previous reports) formally introduced SB 900 to the state Senate Tuesday, just in time for a hearing later today on the topic.
Sponsored by Senator Kim Ward and co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Tomlinson, Sen. Elder Vogel and Sen. Joseph Scarnati, the bill expands the fight for legalisation to the Senate, adding momentum to Rep. John Payne’s HB649 which is already in the state House of Representatives.
The Senate proposal envisages restricting online gambling licensing to existing land casino licence holders under the stringent regulation of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which will be empowered to issue temporary online gambling regulations to make legalisation more quickly effective if politically approved.
Licensing decisions on internet gambling applicants must be resolved within 120 days, and a 5-year permit fee of $10 million is proposed, with a renewal fee of $1 million. This is in addition to a proposed tax rate of 54 percent on GGR.
Game servers must be “maintained only within the physical location of a permittee’s facility,” and technology suppliers will have to obtain a separate licence from the Board.
To date the bill does not appear to have the obstructionist “bad actor” clause that has so troubled legalisation in California.
There appear to be provision for persons living more than twenty miles from a gambling facility for such persons to register online; otherwise players will have to initially open their accounts at the operator’s physical location.
The full bill is accessible here:
