Pennsylvania Makes Slot Machine License Decision

Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board has finally made a decision in regards to the slot machine licenses that they were planning on awarding. They have chosen from thirteen groups that wanted the slot machine license and awarded five standalone slot machine parlor licenses. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the group led by Neil Bluhm from Chicago have both won a slot machine license, and both are planning on building in Philadelphia.

Don Barden of Detroit won the one slot machine license for Pittsburgh – where he plans to build in the city’s stadium district. But the most important fact for many is that they rejected the plan to build a slot machine casino near Gettysburg – as many felt it was sacrilegious to do so. They also rejected a bid by Donald Trump to build a slot machine casino in northwest Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh Penguins fans were worried that they rejected a bid by Isle of Capri Casinos, for if they had won the slot machine license they would have build a $290 million arena for the Penguins without using taxpayer money to do so. They did however approve eleven permanent slot machine licenses – with each one allowing a maximum of 5,000 slot machines each. Six of the slot machine licenses go to the state’s horse racing tracks.

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