BestCraps.com

Pennsylvania Strikes Gold in Casino Taxes

Posted on December 24th, 2010

News Sponsored by Online Vegas Casino

Rated 5 Stars by BestCraps.com

Read Review

Visit Casino

Download Software

————————————————

Casinos became legal and licensed five years ago in the State of Pennsylvania under Governor Ed Rendell’s authority, and have gone nowhere but up. Almost a billion dollars a year in tax revenue has been raked in coming from numerous casinos that sprang up over the years. People opposed to Rendell’s vision in the beginning have had to admit he was on the dot. In an interview with the Tribune Review on Tuesday, Rendell was quoted as saying, “When I said stuff like that in the campaign and then when I became governor, people said I was crazy, that I was over-optimistic, et cetera. It’s been incredible. We were the only state to have its gaming revenues substantially increase last year.”

Compared to Nevada, with Las Vegas and Atlantic City in New Jersey, Pennsylvania boasts of raising more money for the public coming from gambling and other casino activities, more so than any other state. Holly Wetzel, the American Gaming Association’s spokeswoman has stated that, “Las Vegas is still King. But Pennsylvania has certainly become a major player when you look at the national picture.”

Legalized gambling in Pennsylvania partly owes its success to the state’s high tax rate, allowing each and every casino established within its jurisdiction to remit more money in terms of taxed revenues in the 2009 – 2010 fiscal year, than the previous year. In that same year, Pennsylvania’s tax revenue increased by 21 percent putting it to a 929 million dollar mark, as a result of the gambling industry’s presence. $831 million in taxes was generated by the state of Nevada from casinos, its statistic just a tad lower than Pennsylvania’s, although $10 billion was the total sum they raked in. But due to its squat percentage of 6.5 percent in taxes, compared to Pennsylvania’s 55 percent on slot machines, the latter state collects added gambling taxes more than any other state. Just last year, two new casinos were built in Pennsylvania, and experts have accurately noted that the industry is certainly growing.

As for every benefit, there always comes with it a downside. There have been protesters against casinos in the state, claiming that the social problems arising from such establishments are harmful to the state. Bruce Barron is the president of No Dice; a Baldwin based association, which strongly disagrees with the gambling industry’s influence on the citizens of the state. In addition to this, people as well are eager to know why difficulties, budget-wise, still take place for Pennsylvania when fact clearly states the massive tax revenues it collects. “There’s no way it’s worth it”, Barron believed. “Even with us bringing in more tax revenue than Nevada, our budget is still in terrible shape. We weren’t a billion dollars in the red before casinos.”

“They’ve tapped into a lot of human weakness to get the money”, Rep. Paul Clymer, a Bucks County Republican, said in protest against the ever growing casino industry. “The whole gaming apparatus is geared to cleaning out the pockets of those who come in.” Human cost was not added to the factors that contribute in making legalized gambling effective, although to Rendell’s credit, the exorbitant amount of taxes raised from gambling money cannot be disputed.

Rendell, additionally, has uttered in his defence that people should mull over the reality that without the slots money generated from casinos, the Penguin could be abolished. “Everyone should be clear,” Rendell alleged. “Without gaming, the Penguins are in Kansas City, and the Kansas City Penguins won the Stanley Cup.” In order for the hockey franchise to keep staying in the state, $7.5 million in total amount every year is being paid by Rivers Casino to the arena, which is burrowed deeply in debt and is now sustained by gambling money. That is Rendell’s Plan B, after the Gaming Control Board declined an offer from a St. Louis-based Isle of Capri Casinos which tried to purchase said arena for $290 million five years ago. That license went to North Shore Casino.

The fate of the casino industry will be in the hands of Republican Gov.-elect Tom Corbett as Rendell leaves office next month, and the new governor is sworn in.