Pennyslvania Starting To Seriously Consider Table Games

It's all coming together...residents getting their taste of school tax breaks from the slots, pressure from DE casinos having sports betting, and now the massive budget debates.

At least there's a positive in all this economic mess here in PA.

good luck :joker:
 
cc218 said:
Not sure what other states tax casinos at but I'm thinking that a better tax rate would have a better chance of having more liberable rules for the tables themselves.
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Not sure I agree with this thinking at all. I think they are going to want to create as large a "hold" as possible by giving horrible crappy rules that give the casino as much an advantage as they can get away with. The only thing that will create more liberal rules is competition. Pa venues all stand alone, rather than in a cluster like atlantic city or vegas, so each casino has vertually no competition.
 
kewljason said:
Not sure I agree with this thinking at all. I think they are going to want to create as large a "hold" as possible by giving horrible crappy rules that give the casino as much an advantage as they can get away with. The only thing that will create more liberal rules is competition. Pa venues all stand alone, rather than in a cluster like atlantic city or vegas, so each casino has vertually no competition.
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i think i agree with your crappy rules logic as well. I could see it going several ways i guess. As for the competition question i see what your saying about not being all lined up but there is still competition from places not far away. Ohio has just announced that they will be adding slots. That can potentially dent the casinos in pittsburgh and the one in erie. The two pittsburgh area ones also have the tables and slots of west virginia (about 1 hour from there) to contend with. The erie one already has to contend with an Indian casino about an hour away and the casinos in niagara falls(about 1.5 hours). The philly ones will have to battle with the A.C. ones as well. So there is some competition around though not quite as direct as one would like. In any case I will be happy if there are halfways decent games around. As it is i see no real reason to go to the PA casinos often as slots suck and the virtual blackjack rules are just not any good.
 
I'll believe it when I'm sitting at the table playing. For the trend in casinos is to get as far away from table games as possible, which is why casino outfits like Sands and Mohegan Sun are so hot to open up casinos in these slots-only venues. It's the slots-only casinos that are taking money away from the traditional casinos, not the other way around.
 
AM - keep in mind that the table games proposal was "urged" to the legislature by three of PA's casinos execs. Even if profits from tables are less than slots percentage wise, you've gotta think that offering more products in the shop will attract more players, and perhaps for more trips.
 
PA, Catskills, MA, and even Lil Rhody are hammering the rev's of CT already, and most of this aint built yet! At least thats what the Rev report just handed in states. On the other hand, the "stupid" economy, is drying up... the non addicted are leaving the slots alone, very alone. And then theres the MGM Grand at FW... just too late to be profitable. Thank God Weiker rammed an Income Tax up our ass in late '91... just before FW opened in April '92 or we'd be broke...

NO WAIT... we are broke... and the Income Tax is getting less $$$$$$ too. Jeez, whats a poor little rich state gonna do? LMFAO ROTF PMP
 
Well, I do happen to think physical card games might be a reality in Pennsylvania in the not-too-distant future.

I don't know, but, it seems to me PA might have about the highest HA% on slots of anywhere in the country. (due to, like someone said, the highest tax-rate by the state).

In the meantime, the virtual BJ machines at the new casino in Pittsburgh exist in a $5, $10, $15 $25 min bet form with a $100 max on each with each player and dealer having his own virtually 6D, DOA, DAS, LS, H17 3:2 BJ, shuffled aftewr every round I believe, with the 7-cards-or-less less than 21 being an auto-winner stuff.

There was a Royal Match bet but I don't know the pay table becasue I'd never play it anyway lol.

The table rules said something about a "$5 bonus with the max bet of $100"?!
It almost made it sound one might have a $105 bet with only a $100 bet of one's own money.

Anybody know what that actually means?

Yes, the H17 does kind of ruin it a little lol.

Also a $5 3-card poker table with a pair-plus 35-25-6-4-1 paytable if I remember right. Don't even know the basic non- pair-plus table lol.

Also, I'm not sure whether it is Peek or No-Peek.
 
Kasi said:
Well, I do happen to think physical card games might be a reality in Pennsylvania in the not-too-distant future.

I don't know, but, it seems to me PA might have about the highest HA% on slots of anywhere in the country. (due to, like someone said, the highest tax-rate by the state).
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Can I ask, what makes you think table games are in the not too distant future, Kasi? I really haven't heard much talk of this. I know Pa, like everyone else wants to increase it's revenue, However I would think the first priority should be to concentrate on getting casinos, or more accurately called slot parlors up and running in the largest city in the state. It's inconceivable that 3 years into legal slot play in Pa, the largest degenerate pool of gamblers is still being ignored. Thats just bad management.
 
kewljason,

Maybe I'm killing too many brain cells these days, but don't Phila Park & Harrah's Chester have slot parlors up and running in the Philly area right now?

And there has been consideration to a table game bill, but the whole budget issue has been "time consuming", if you will.

good luck :joker:
 
ChefJJ said:
kewljason,

Maybe I'm killing too many brain cells these days, but don't Phila Park & Harrah's Chester have slot parlors up and running in the Philly area right now?

And there has been consideration to a table game bill, but the whole budget issue has been "time consuming", if you will.

good luck :joker:
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Yes Phila Phila Park and Chester are both open, but neither is located within the city itself, nor easily accessable by public transportation. Living in the Center city area, myself, I would need to spend a half hour on the subway and about an hour bus ride to get to either location. I can be in Atlantic City or Delaware Park by public transportation in less time. They set aside two licenses for locations within the city over 3 years ago and yet still are fighting over locations and have not even begun construction. That's 3 year and counting of lost revenue.

I've never understood why if a state is going to allow slots, it wouldn't allow tables as well. table games means more revenue and guess what, creates quite a few jobs as well. :confused:
 
kewljason said:
Yes Phila Phila Park and Chester are both open, but neither is located within the city itself, nor easily accessable by public transportation. Living in the Center city area, myself, I would need to spend a half hour on the subway and about an hour bus ride to get to either location. I can be in Atlantic City or Delaware Park by public transportation in less time. They set aside two licenses for locations within the city over 3 years ago and yet still are fighting over locations and have not even begun construction. That's 3 year and counting of lost revenue.

I've never understood why if a state is going to allow slots, it wouldn't allow tables as well. table games means more revenue and guess what, creates quite a few jobs as well. :confused:
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I don't get it either but that's we get here in Pennsyltucky. I think it it is actually quite hypocritical that we can have slots and not table games. I think most of the old people here are against tables because you can lose more money on a single play on a table than you can lose on a slot. That being said, the $20 per spin slots seem to be plenty busy around here. As for the situation in philadelphia, i don't get it either. I live on the opposite side of the state so i'm not privy to all the daily crap surrounding it but there was all kinds of shenanigans on this side of the state before anything ever got built. You'll probably be lucky to see those things inside of 3 more years..
 
kewljason said:
...I've never understood why if a state is going to allow slots, it wouldn't allow tables as well. table games means more revenue and guess what, creates quite a few jobs as well. :confused:
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In terms of lobbying, slots are produced and leased out by some large and powerful companies, who have a major incentive to get slots legalized and a minor incentive to keep other forms of gaming out. The casinos share the same incentives; getting table games is not worth the kind of lobbying effort (bribery) that getting the slot parlors was, and they're not going to have IGT et. al. helping them. Particularly a public domain game like blackjack; the casinos see it as personnel-heavy, risky, needing the expense of education and training, and requiring shutting down some slot banks to make physical room for them.

So from the perspective of the gaming industry, putting your political resources into getting table games legalized isn't worth it when you can use those resources instead to open up another slot parlor, until the slot parlor market in PA is saturated which it isn't close yet.
 
Automatic Monkey said:
So from the perspective of the gaming industry, putting your political resources into getting table games legalized isn't worth it when you can use those resources instead to open up another slot parlor, until the slot parlor market in PA is saturated which it isn't close yet.
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I see your point, AM. But just to throw it out there, don't you think there is some merit to opening up the PA casinos to more of a customer base via tables? The thoughts are out there...how would that be a negative when competing with other states?

good luck :joker:
 
ChefJJ said:
I see your point, AM. But just to throw it out there, don't you think there is some merit to opening up the PA casinos to more of a customer base via tables? The thoughts are out there...how would that be a negative when competing with other states?

good luck :joker:
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Oh it wouldn't be a negative, it just wouldn't be enough of a positive to risk doing what you have to do to make it so. Let's say the casino developers buy enough votes in the state legislature to do one thing, what do you think that one thing would be, put a slot parlor near downtown Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, or put blackjack tables in the Sands?

It may come in time, but I don't think we'll see it until they've first put slots everywhere they can put them.
 
Automatic Monkey said:
Oh it wouldn't be a negative, it just wouldn't be enough of a positive to risk doing what you have to do to make it so. Let's say the casino developers buy enough votes in the state legislature to do one thing, what do you think that one thing would be, put a slot parlor near downtown Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, or put blackjack tables in the Sands?

It may come in time, but I don't think we'll see it until they've first put slots everywhere they can put them.
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Good point, AM.

Philly is a different animal to say the least. It's not a surprise they can't figure out where to put the freakin' thing! It probably doesn't matter all that much at this point, since the people with the money to spend are mobile enough to go to Phila Park or Chester...not a knock at you, Jason, at all.

good luck :joker:
 
ChefJJ said:
Good point, AM.

Philly is a different animal to say the least. It's not a surprise they can't figure out where to put the freakin' thing! It probably doesn't matter all that much at this point, since the people with the money to spend are mobile enough to go to Phila Park or Chester...not a knock at you, Jason, at all.

good luck :joker:
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no offense taken chefjj, however, there are a lot of people who live in the city and use public transportation, beleive me. By building at a location without access to public trans, you are losing out on those people. Why do you think when you build a ballpark or sporting facility, they are always accessible by public transportation.

Have you seen how many people travel to atlantic city via public transportation. From Philadelphia 14 daily trains (new jersey transit) 35 daily new jersey transit bus trips, 16 daily greyhound bus trips, and numerous other bus companies run daily trips from Phila to ac (sheppard bus co, lion bus, coastal coach, david tours, golden charter service among others)

Thats a pretty big public transportation market they could be losing out on.
 
Thunder said:
Just out of curiosity Jason,
How much does it cost to take the train and bus from there to AC?
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I haven't taken a bus in quite awhile. (maybe a year) greyhound used to be $19 round trip with whatever cashback the casino was giving at the time.

New jersey transit train which is my primary mode of transportation, from 30th street station, Phila to AC is $8 each way. No cash back, but a nice relaxing trip plus shuttle service to the casino.
 
Don't be surprised if there are big political contributions to the PA politicos to quash table games. From WHom? The AC casinos, of course.

The legalization of slots in PA is what is killing the AC casinos, not changes in smoking laws nor the economy. If PA adds table games with reasonable rules, what reason would anyone within an hour of a PA casino have to go to AC?
 
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