Crystal Ball Department
My pundit's crystal ball is out of the shop good as new, so I might as well peer into it and see what's what with the future.
Let me set it for 2010.
Hold on, an image is arriving. I see people lined up at a craps table at a big casino. At another, they are playing 21. I see a throng of gamblers around a roulette wheel. There are poker tables aplenty, each seat filled with players.
Where is this happening? I'll move my crystal-ball minicam to the outside and do a scan. What's that I see in the distance?
Why, it's the Philadelphia skyline!
Why am I not surprised? To use the adjectives employed by its supporters, the monumental, astonishing, incredible, breakthrough, historic property-tax bill passed by the state House on Wednesday is predicated on the state getting $1 billion in revenue from gambling.
Currently, slots is the only gambling permitted in Pennsylvania. (Not that any slots parlors are up and running yet. My crystal ball says the first won't even open until 2008.)
What happens when the slots yield less than the promised $1 billion, as it inevtiably will?
We will have three choices: (1) reduce the amount of property tax assistance offered by the state to our beloved seniors and local schools districts; (2) raise the income tax or sales tax to make up the difference; (3) allow gambling to be expanded to include other games of chance.
Which do you think the legislature and governor will pick?
You don't really need a crystal ball to answer that question.
In the meantime, there's a speedbump on the roadway to progress.
Ted Decker, chair of the state's Gaming Control Commission has warned there may not be any casinos in our future, unless the seven-member commission can agree on competing lists of slots suppliers.
The gambling law requires that the casino operators purchase their slot machines from Pennsylvania-based firms which, astonishing as it may seem, have ended up being dominated by politically-connected investors.
The commission can't decide how to divvy -- I mean allocate -- the business among the competing firms. Stalemate has ensued. Without an approved lists, there can be no slots suppliers, without slots suppliers there can be no slots parlors, without slots parlors there can be no....well, you get the point.
The problem here is that the gambling legislation required the commission to operate under a "super-majority" -- any action is takes must be approved by five commissioners -- and the four appointed by each legislative caucus and the governor's appointee must be included in that majority.
Let me set it for 2010.
Hold on, an image is arriving. I see people lined up at a craps table at a big casino. At another, they are playing 21. I see a throng of gamblers around a roulette wheel. There are poker tables aplenty, each seat filled with players.
Where is this happening? I'll move my crystal-ball minicam to the outside and do a scan. What's that I see in the distance?
Why, it's the Philadelphia skyline!
Why am I not surprised? To use the adjectives employed by its supporters, the monumental, astonishing, incredible, breakthrough, historic property-tax bill passed by the state House on Wednesday is predicated on the state getting $1 billion in revenue from gambling.
Currently, slots is the only gambling permitted in Pennsylvania. (Not that any slots parlors are up and running yet. My crystal ball says the first won't even open until 2008.)
What happens when the slots yield less than the promised $1 billion, as it inevtiably will?
We will have three choices: (1) reduce the amount of property tax assistance offered by the state to our beloved seniors and local schools districts; (2) raise the income tax or sales tax to make up the difference; (3) allow gambling to be expanded to include other games of chance.
Which do you think the legislature and governor will pick?
You don't really need a crystal ball to answer that question.
In the meantime, there's a speedbump on the roadway to progress.
Ted Decker, chair of the state's Gaming Control Commission has warned there may not be any casinos in our future, unless the seven-member commission can agree on competing lists of slots suppliers.
The gambling law requires that the casino operators purchase their slot machines from Pennsylvania-based firms which, astonishing as it may seem, have ended up being dominated by politically-connected investors.
The commission can't decide how to divvy -- I mean allocate -- the business among the competing firms. Stalemate has ensued. Without an approved lists, there can be no slots suppliers, without slots suppliers there can be no slots parlors, without slots parlors there can be no....well, you get the point.
The problem here is that the gambling legislation required the commission to operate under a "super-majority" -- any action is takes must be approved by five commissioners -- and the four appointed by each legislative caucus and the governor's appointee must be included in that majority.
posted by Tom Ferrick Jr. at 9:13 AM
2 Comments:
It isn't just compulsive gamblers who are addicted to gambling. It's politicians as well. When are they going to figure out that gambling is no solution to the state's financial problems? Sure, it transfers a lot of money into the state treasury, but at a very high social cost. Not all the gamblers are high rollers—in fact, most of them can't afford their losses—and nobody ever went into the casino business with a view to losing money.
plshark is correct.
Act 71 needs to be repealed and they should go back to the drawing board.
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