Morgantown is a town of 826 residents in the extreme south part of Berks County. The town has an average house price of $250,000.
Penn National Gaming announced plans to build the Hollywood Casino Morgantown in Caernarvon Township in Berks County this week. The location is at the intersection of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 176 near the city of Reading.
The Pennsylvania casino company filed an applicatioun with the state’s Gaming Control Board (PGCB) to build the $111 million satellite casino at the Morgantown site. The development plan calls for an 80,000 square foot mini-casino to be built on 36 acres of land.
The resulting casino should have the maximum allotment of 750 slot machines, 30 table games, and a sportsbook. Category 4 casinos, usually known as satellite or mini-casinos, cannot have more than 750 gaming machines or 30 table games.
Penn National Gaming won the right to build the satellite casino in an auction back in January 2018. Of all Pennsylvania’s gaming operators, Penn National was the most enthusiastic bidder in the 3-month casino auction process. It spent the most for a single casino license, while being the only operator to win two auctions.
Hollywood Casino York
The company bid $50.1 million for the right to place the first of ten potential satellite casinos. That auction resulted in the Hollywood Casino York. Its executives plan was to develop a casino on a site near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, so no other casino developer could hem in the Hollywood Casino in Reading — which is Penn National’s main casino operation in the state.
The Hollywood Casino York also might capture some gamblers driving across the border from Northern Maryland. While casino goers in that state have several fine choices in Maryland Live!, MGM National Harbor, and Horseshoe Baltimore, those casinos are further away than the smaller Morgantown resort would be.
Hollywood Casino Morgantown
Hollywood Casino Morgantown was the last license acquired by Penn National early this spring. Originally, Pennsylvania casino operators could not bid on more than one satellite casino. When several of the other operators chose not to bid on a mini-casino and several licenses were left without an owner, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board opened bidding to those who already had a satellite casino.
Penn National Gaming became the only operator to secure two mini-casino licenses. The $10.5 million bid on what became Hollywood Casino Morgantown was barely above the $10 million minimum bid, but Penn National thought the investment would be a lucrative one.
Timothy Wilmott, the CEO of Penn National, said in a press release this week, “Hollywood Casino Morgantown is ideally situated to generate new revenues from the more densely populated suburbs to the west of Philadelphia, while further protecting our existing market share at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course.”
Competition from Valley Forge Casino
If the casino license is approved — and all indications are it will be — then the casino’s nearest competition would be the Valley Forge Casino Resort. Boyd Gaming Corp out of Las Vegas purchased the Valley Forge Casino Resort in September.
Timothy Wilmott described the thought process that went into choosing a site for the second satellite casino. He stated, “While we explored numerous locations for our Category 4 casino in and around Berks County, the site we selected is unparalleled in terms of ease of access to three major arteries.”
“Hollywood Casino Morgantown is ideally situated to generate new revenues from the more densely populated suburbs to the west of Philadelphia, while further protecting our existing market share at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course.”
Hollywood Morgantown Sportsbook
As the Morgantown casino was being announced, PGCB Director of Communication Doug Harbach confirmed what long had been rumored: Category 4 (satellite) casinos would be able to host sportsbooks. Penn National indicated it would spend the $10 million licensing fee to add a sportsbook to the Hollywood Casino Morgantown.
The process might take a while. If the PGCB handles the Hollywood casinos like it handled Parx Casino, then the original Hollywood Casino in Reading will have to prove it can manage a sportsbook responsibly before the York and Morgantown operations can house a sportsbook.
Handling bookmaker duties is much different that table games, poker, and slot machines, because of all the sports betting lines and proposition bets its oddsmakers must create on the fly. As a general rule, a casino hires oddsmakers or bookmaker companies as specialists to produce betting lines.
