Pennsylvania State Senators introducing legislation to allow Internet gambling

Pennsylvania State Senator are preparing themselves for the new era. The several difficulties that Pennsylvania is going through have taken the state to make a decision on how to increase state revenues. Pennsylvania Senate President Joe Scarnati is fighting against all odds to put some common sense into the State Senate, as many other politicians are just trying to play games with the State tax revenues and, therefore, with the future of Pennsylvania. State´s casino gambling legislation is obsolete, probably comes from laws created several decades ago, when online gambling was not even a choice. And that is why some politicians are trying to push legislation forward, working through difficult budgets, to make of online gambling one of the main tax revenues sources.

The reason why Pennsylvania is now thinking on legalizing, or decriminalizing online gambling, comes from Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg. They are thinking of making some changes to the state's casino gambling legislation; but, for now, they are only focused on Ira Lubert's Valley Forge Casino Resort. "Reforming the Gaming Act would not only benefit our guests, it has the potential to generate even greater tax revenues for the commonwealth," Valley Forge Casino chairman Bob Pickus publicly stated last week.

Legalizing online gambling could be the next step, as Pennsylvania Senate President Joe Scarnati mentioned to the Washington Times: “It is troubling to me to read where the administration says: You folks in the Legislature can embark upon looking for revenues from gaming. I still want my tax increases”. State Senator Tommy Tomlinson said: "I think the thing driving this, more than anything, is the need for money to settle a budget, where there's not a lot of people who want to vote for a tax increase". State Representative John Payne, chairman of the Gaming Oversight Committee, introduced earlier this year 2015 the Internet gambling license fee of $5 million, as well as a 14 percent tax rate, a sign of the desperate times the state is going through.