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It took new casinos to set a new record for Pennsylvania's slot machines and table games revenue. The state's casinos generated $3.43 billion from slot machine and tables games in the last year. Online casinos and sports betting have boosted the industry. Traditional casinos have been operating since 2006. They employ nearly 15,000 people. They made a record $5.04 billion in revenue in last 12 months.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will hear arguments on the pending license for a mini-casino near State College at its October 19, 2022 meeting. The Cordish Companies has a lawsuit pending in Commonwealth Court over its claim that the gaming board improperly accepted the Category 4 licensing bid from Ira Lubert on Sept. 2, 2020.

Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course's poker room will not reopen after a March 2020 shutdown. The casino will hold a draw at the end of July to give away over $440,000 from its poker "bad beat" jackpot.

PA Lottery offers a premium online lottery experience. The Powerball draw game is a big draw draw.

Pennsylvania's 18 iCasinos collected $113.3 million in May. It's the seventh month in a row that the state's online casino play has exceeded $100 million. In the first five months of 2022, the i Casinos have collected about $555.2 million from gamblers. The retail casinos generate a lot more revenue, but that total year-to-year is basically flat.

Wind Creek Bethlehem gets state approval to reduce the number of slot machines on its gaming floor by 655. The renovation process is expected to take place over the next 10 months. The state has a 54% tax rate on slots. Several of Wind Creek's counterparts have already obtained approval. They were allowed to go smaller without losing revenue. It's because of the post-COVID restrictions. There are currently 2,318 slot machine authorized machines in the Pennsylvania casinos. Only about 70% of them are used when the casino is busiest.

Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh is offering a million-dollar bad beat jackpot. It's twice the amount it had previously awarded for a bad beating. The jack pot grows by a couple thousand dollars every day. The largest bad-beat jackpots were reported from Detroit's Motor City Casino and Playground Poker Club. If the Rivers prize doesn't reach $1.5 million within two to three weeks, it could be the largest in U.S. casino history.

Online casinos offer bonuses to attract new customers. Hollywoodcasino.com offers a $10 bonus for signing up.

Rivers Casino Philadelphia installed metal detectors in February. The devices are used to screen patrons for weapons. Rivers and Valley Forge are having licensing renewal hearings before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.  

March was a great month for the Pennsylvania gaming industry. $462.7 million was generated by all forms of gaming, including $118.1 million from online casinos. Another $30.4 million in sports betting revenue was also recorded.

Report shows casino lobbyists wrote a bill that would have made unregulated "games of skill" illegal in Pennsylvania. The bill was never considered. Speeches about the issue continue in the current legislative session in Harrisburg. Skill games are not regulated by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. They are different from truck stop video gaming terminals that are legal in that state. The companies operating them do not pay taxes.

State Rep. Dan Frankel and Sen. Jay Costa want to change the law to ban casino smoking. The 2008 law bans smoking in restaurants and other public spaces, but it allows casinos to allow smoking on up to 50% of the gaming floor. Parx Casino, the state's largest, requires smokers to go outside to light up. Mount Airy Casino Resort has also initiated its own ban. The state revenue figures suggest that the ban does not harm the casinos. It is a health issue for non-smokers. They prefer to be in venues where they don't have to deal with cigarettes nearby.

Wind Creek Bethlehem wants to reduce its slot machine complement by 655. It is the latest casino to do so in Pennsylvania. Harrah's Philadelphia, Mount Airy Casino Resort, Hollywood Casino at Penn National, and Hollywood at The Meadows have already removed or are in the process of removing 1,201 slot machines. The state is a partner in gaming industry, as 54% of slots revenue is taxed.

Pennsylvania's gaming industry generated $4.73 billion in commercial revenue in 2021. Online casinos and sports betting helped the industry grow. Casinos struggled to match the previous year's revenue. The state has 16 casinos, but only 12 were open in the past decade. The slots and tables revenue totaled $3.21 billion. For the dozen that were also in business in 2019, it was $2.87 billion, a 12.2% decline from the pre-COVID era.

The Stars Group has launched an online casino in Pennsylvania. The company is the first to launch its products in the Keystone State. It offers slot titles and table games integrated into its premium online gambling platform.

Six state senators reintroduced a bill on the first day of the new legislative session Wednesday that would ban smoking at the nine Atlantic City casinos. The bill has the backing of Gov. Phil Murphy and Dr. Herb Conaway, the chairman of Health Committee in the Assembly.

Penn National Gaming is opening its third casino in Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The 80,000-square-foot facility will be called Hollywood Casino Morgantown. It will open three days before Christmas. Penn National has 16 casinos in the state. The company has been expanding operations before the COVID pandemic. Its fourth casino is called the Hollywood casino at The Meadows south of Pittsburgh. Hollywood casinos at Penn and York have been profitable.

The new New Jersey Legislature is in session. The Atlantic City casino industry's exemption from an indoor smoking ban is not being advanced by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. Sweeney lost his seat last month to a little-known truck driver. A casino tax-break bill cleared a state senate committee on Monday. Office of Legislative Services says the bill will reduce the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes by $55 million in 2022 and probably between $30 million and $65 million through 2026.

Cordish Companies is selling off and leasing back its Live! Casinos in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The deal with Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. was announced late Monday. GLPI is an investment trust spun off from Penn National Gaming. It owns the real estate of numerous casinos across the U.S. that are run by gaming companies. Peter Carlino, chairman and CEO of GL PI, said the transaction is part of a strategy to diversify its portfolio.

Penn National Gaming plans to open a new casino in Berks County on Wednesday, December 22. The company has invested $111 million in the property. It will be the fourth casino to be opened in Pennsylvania as a result of 2017 gaming expansion legislation. The first one opened at Pittsburgh! Live at Westmoreland Mall a year ago.

Neither the law nor the consensus among lawmakers is expected to take action on skill games legislation this year. The two-year legislative session carries over into 2022. The legislation would legalize and tax the controversial games. It would also allow gambling machines in bars, private clubs and fraternal organizations and would tax their revenue at 16%.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board fined three casinos for violations of regulations and gave a green light for opening of a mini-casino in Berks County and an OTB race and sportsbook in Chester County. It also approved two casinos’ plans to reduce their number of slot machines and heard one casino outline an intensified program to prevent gamblers from leaving children unattended. October represented a record $89 million month for table games revenue at the brick-and-mortar casinos and $200 million for slots revenue.

Live! Pittsburgh plans to add a seven-table poker room at the Westmoreland Mall mini-casino. It will be open in early 2022. The room will create about 25 new jobs. Live! opened a free six-week dealer school Monday to begin the process of filling them.

PlayUp plans to launch an online casino in Pennsylvania next year. PlayUp has already established iGaming sites in Colorado and New Jersey. The company secured market access to the state through a deal with Caesars Entertainment Corp. and Harrah's Philadelphia. MaximBet announced a similar deal in September.

David Cordish, 81, is the CEO of the Live!-branded casinos in or near Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. He is skeptical about the potential for online casino gambling. He believes only a small group of companies can afford to spend up to $1 billion or more to construct a traditional casino. iGaming is not open to the internet. It is a very small market. The people who can get into igaming are big names like Amazon, Facebook and Google.

Live! Pittsburgh's mini-casino made $9 million in September. Hollywood Casino York made about $6.7 million. The mini casinos' daily win per slot machine is among the highest in the commonwealth. Three more mini casino's are expected to open in Pennsylvania before the end of the year. They could produce a combined revenue approaching $500 million annually.

Parx Casino in Pennsylvania has been fined $10,000 for an incident involving an 18-year-old who accessed the gaming floor and played slot machines for less than a half-hour. The incident occurred in September 2020. Parx self-reported the violation of state law. The gambling board Chairwoman Denise Smyler raised a concern about the possibility of people with COVID symptoms getting into the casino during the pandemic.

Meadows Racetrack & Casino in Washington County, Pennsylvania, will be called Hollywood Casino at The Meadows on Friday. The name will align it with the Hollywood casino brand used at Penn National's other Pennsylvania properties.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board approved a reduction of 130 slot machines at Mount Airy Casino Resort. The board also raised concerns about the proliferation of unregulated "skill games" in casinos. The general manager of Mount airy said the spread of these games has hurt slot machine revenue in the state. He also said it was having a material impact on land-based slot revenue. Harrah’s Philadelphia got board approval to remove 563 slot Machines. Penn National Gaming has its own request pending to get rid of more than 500 combined at its two biggest Pennsylvania venues: the Hollywood Casino in Dauphin County and Meadows Racetrack & Casino.

Carousel Group, which operates MaximBet online casino and sportsbook sites, will be able to enter the Pennsylvania market under an access agreement with Caesars Entertainment. Maxim Bet sportsbooks launched this month in Colorado and Carousel is working on future plans to do so in Iowa, Indiana, New Jersey and Arizona.

Player Wins $207K In PA Online Lottery Progressive Jackpot Game. Unidentified player from Erie County won the prize from the Jungle Tumble Jackpots game. The game launched in February and is available via computer, tablet, or mobile device to anyone age 18 and over.

Penn National wants to remove 317 slot machines from Meadows Racetrack & Casino and 191 from its main Hollywood Casino in Dauphin County. Harrah’s Philadelphia won state approval to reduce slot machine numbers by 563 in June. Slots historically brought in $2.4 billion annually in Pennsylvania. Slabs are taxed at 54%.

July was the best month for Pennsylvania's casinos. They made a record $309.8 million on slots and table games. Live! casinos in Philadelphia and Westmoreland County made $31.7 million. The 12 casinos open in July 2021 as July 2019 reaped $278.1 million last month. That's a 0.6% increase from two years ago. The state's gaming industry is booming due to the growth of iGaming and sports betting.

July saw a 27.6% drop in sports betting in Pennsylvania. However, the number of gamblers who bet on casinos increased. The Hollywood Casino York mini-casino opened last week. In July, there are now 15 casinos in the state. In June, 14 casinos earned $260.5 million. July's revenue from land-based casinos was $309.8 million, while in July of 2019, it was only $276.1 million due to the addition of Live! casinos. It was the first month since COVID-19 was lifted that all restrictions within casinos were lifted for the entire month.

Penn National Gaming is promoting its new "three C's" conversion to cash-less, card-free, and contact-lessly gaming. The new technology is available at the Meadows and at Hollywood casinos in Pennsylvania. Valley Forge Casino Resort is the only other Pennsylvania casino with similar technology. Boyd Gaming Corp. hopes to install it in the majority of its properties nationally by year's end. It's supposed to work like this: you transfer funds from a bank card or account into a digital wallet connected to your casino loyalty card information, scan the app at a slot machine, send designated funds to the machine and play as long as desired. When done, you cash out any winnings or remaining funds by sending them back to wallet.

Hollywood Casino York is set to open on Thursday at noon in a former Sears outlet in York Galleria Mall in Springettsbury Township. The mini-casino is owned by Penn National Gaming Inc. and will allow customers to use a digital wallet to conduct cashless transactions at slot machines and table games. It is the second mini casino to be opened in Pennsylvania under the state's expanded gaming law. The first mini Casino is in the Westmoreland Mall, 22 miles east of Pittsburgh. A fifth mini casinos project is scheduled for State College. Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc., which operates Parx Casino in Bensalem, is awaiting license approval for its mini gambling project.

Penn National Gaming will open its first mini-casino in York County on Thursday. PNG filed a federal lawsuit three years ago to block the creation of mini casinos in Pennsylvania. The company withdrew the suit and is focusing on development of two projects in the York and Berks counties. Hollywood Casino York is a $120 million investment at York Galleria Mall. It will be PNG's second mini casino in PA after Live! Pittsburgh.  The Live!, Pittsburgh property opened last November in Westmoreland County.

Pennsylvania's 17 online casinos are on pace to win more than $1 billion this year. The state's top revenue producer in June was Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course. The other top earners were Rivers Casino Philadelphia and Rush Street Interactive. iCasinos can be lumped together in the revenue reported for a single licensee. There is no limit on how many online casino can operate in Pennsylvania. They must be tethered to an existing brick-and-mortar casino operator.

PA's first mini-casino opened in November at Westmoreland Mall. It generated $45.1 million in gaming revenue in first four months. The second one is due to open in two weeks. Sean Sullivan is the general manager of Live! Pittsburgh. He has worked in executive capacities at numerous casinos, including Meadows Racetrack & Casino. Live!' Pittsburgh is on pace to make nearly $100 million this year.

Gambling-related worldwide revenue is predicted to increase from $64.13 billion in 2020 to $72.02 billion by 2021. Sports betting is on the rise. Virtual reality and free-to-play gaming are growing in popularity. The use of blockchain technology may help solve some issues with online gambling. The betting activity around esports is expanding rapidly. Female gamers are taking part in the sport more and more. Free- to- play games are also growing. They are not directly profitable, but they can generate revenue. People are willing to pay for entertainment.

Hollywood Casino York will open to the public on August 12th. It will be the state's 15th casino. The facility will have 500 slot machines and 24 table games plus a race and sportsbook. There will also be a casual restaurant called Diner & Drinks and a Classic Grill grab-and-go eatery. Two invitation-only test days will precede the grand opening.

There are now live dealer games available at Rush Street Interactive’s BetRivers and PlaySugarHouse sites and the DraftKings casino site attached to Hollywood Casino. The test period runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p. m. Wednesday and 11 to 9 p.,m Thursday.

Yonkers Racino is doing well despite talk of a casino upgrade. The Empire City Casino at Yonkers is 15 years old and has 5,000 slot machines. It has a bus route that ferries passengers from Jersey City to Fort Lee. New York does not allow smoking indoors at gambling facilities. The future of the casino is still unknown. iReport.com. For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90, visit a local Samaritan branch or click here.

Pa. Gaming Control Board has just ended the ban on smoking in casinos. New Jersey governor has no news on the same thing. The ban was introduced in both Pennsylvania and New York last summer.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board granted Harrah's Philadelphia's request to reduce the number of slot machines. The new layout will create a more comfortable gaming environment for guests. The casino has had only 1,300 slot machine in use during the COVID reopening era. There has been “significant oversupply and underutilization of the existing slot Machines” at Harra’s.

Pennsylvania's land-based casinos failed to match their pre-pandemic level of slots and table games activity in May. The monthly report released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board showed a record high level $413.2 million generated in all forms of legal gaming. Online gambling increased the volume of activity. The $101.3 million in combined iCasino slots, tables, and poker revenue was the first time that number surpassed $100 million.

Pennsylvania's casinos made a record $404.1 million in April. The state's gaming industry has returned to pre-Pandemic level of patronage. The two new Live! casinos in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh helped boost the revenue in May. For the first third of this year, retail casino revenue statewide was down 22.5%. It's improved since the casinos returned from a mandatory shutdown in March-June 2020. Gamblers are no longer wearing masks and the social distancing guidelines that reduced slots and table games positions have generally been dropped.

PA's iLotto officially went live on May 29, 2018 with 11 instantwin games. It was one of the first expanded gambling initiatives to go live in the state. The iLottery guide explains the registration process, welcome bonuses and games, and answers common questions.

Alcohol restrictions in Pennsylvania's casinos are about to be eased. Since summer, they have been unable to serve alcohol except to those sitting down to eat meals. The bars inside casinos were closed and their restaurants also had to stop serving drinks at 10 p.m. In three weeks, those restrictions will end and another easing of health requirements will enable casinos to operate at up to 75% capacity instead of the current 50%.

The casino industry is recovering from the financial crisis. National operators are reporting a resurgence of gaming revenue and patronage in April-May. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will release revenue figures next week. In March, slots and table games revenue was off 21.5% from March 2019 at the 12 casinos that were open two years ago. If the new Live! properties in Philadelphia and Westmoreland County are counted, statewide revenue is down 19.6%. The industry was shut down half the month of March 2020 due to the pandemic.

Developers of the Centre County mini-casino at Nittany Mall are counting on more than $100 million in annual revenue from the gaming operation. They invested $79.5 million upfront. The company is headed by Philadelphia businessman/investor Ira Lubert. He won the right to develop the project at a gaming board auction Sept. 2. The project is among four of Pennsylvania’s five mini casinos utilizing vacant mall or other commercial space. It takes advantage of existing infrastructure rather than building from ground up.

Philly Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley announced an easing of restrictions on events in the city. The Flyers hosted 3,023 fans for their game against the Washington Capitals on Sunday. Live! Casino reports a lot of activity before and after the game. The turnstiles will advance roughly the same number of times when the Flyers play the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night and the Sixers will follow suit on the Sunday when they host the San Antonio Spurs.

The Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia opens at 4 p.m. Tuesday. It's the first full-sized casino added to Pennsylvania's gaming industry since Rivers Philadelphia opened a decade ago. The casino will be open to the public after 8 p.,m., on February 11th. The Cordish Companies, the Baltimore-based private firm that lavished $700 million on the project, will start to find out if the investment was worth it.

Live! Casino Philadelphia is about to open. It will be Pennsylvania's 14th brick-and-mortar casino. The hotel rooms facing south will have a clear view of the field from the upper floors of a hotel attached to the casino, which is still under construction. Live! Rewards Club members can book a room for January 19th.

BetMGM is preparing a three-day soft launch of its online casino in Pennsylvania. The company will not provide online poker or sports betting at the start. If all goes well, permanent operation of the site as the 13 iCasino in PA would be allowed Friday.

BetMGM has a sportsbook in several states including Colorado, New Jersey and Indiana. It is preparing for an early 2021 launch in Pennsylvania. New customers can get a deposit match up to $500 for checking out the site. The code PENNBETS for $ 500 Match is available for deposits up $100, $225, or $5,500.

There were 15,659 slots operating last month at the 12 casinos in Pennsylvania instead of the 24,662 in July 2019. The average daily win per slot machine has increased from $254.63 to $364.43. Monthly gaming revenue in the state has risen from $281.5 million to $283.1 million on a year-over-year basis.

Rush Street Interactive and Scientific Games have partnered to offer four new online slots games on BetRivers and Play SugarHouse sites. Rush Street launched its first online casino in New Jersey in 2016.

July brought Pennsylvania more casino revenue and a new online gaming site. Wind Creek Bethlehem got permanent approval July 24.