Gov. Tom Wolf said he did not want the current bill’s gaming to “cannibalize” existing gambling revenues.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf told the Associated Press this week that he wants “real revenue” from the online gambling. Many in the online gaming industry took that as a positive sign.
A closer reading of Gov. Wolf’s comments, which were made at a unrelated political event in the state capital, show that his attitude towards legalized Pennsylvania online gambling is more complicated.
In his remarks, Wolf is signaling to the brick-and-mortar casino industry of Pennsylvania that he plans to protect their interests first.
Reading between the lines, the governor signaled he could be leaning towards a veto of the multi-faceted gambling bill, if Gov. Wolf accepts the current opinion of the state’s brick-and-mortar casino industry. Since they are major taxpayers and long-time business operators in the state, their opinions are likely to carry some weight.
Pennsylvanians For Responsible Government
That is an important distinction, because “Pennsylvanians For Responsible Government”, a political action committee (PAC) set up by Las Vegas Sands Corp, is fighting to limit certain aspects of the bill. Those aspects are a video lottery terminal expansion, which would place VLTs in taverns, clubs, and other businesses around the state.
Las Vegas Sands is trying to protect its casino in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, Bethlehem Sands Resort and Casino, which is the largest gaming operation in the state. The VLT provisions would put as many as 40,000 more gaming machines in the state, which Bethlehem Sands argues would cannibalize its slot machine revenues.
Gov. Wolf Protecting Land-Based Gaming Revenues
Thus, it sounds like Tom Wolf is vowing to protect casinos like Bethlehem Sands, along with the many racinos in the state.
Gov. Wolf’s full quote stated, “I want real revenue, and I want net revenue. I don’t want anything that we do in gaming or gambling to interfere with the revenues that are already in place.”
“If it just cannibalizes and takes from one bucket called gambling to another, the commonwealth isn’t doing anything more than it has in the past.”
Hearing the governor use the word “cannibalizes” is a bad sign, because it is a word the land-based casino operators often use when lobbying against racinos, slots parlors, and online gambling.
Online Gambling Not a Concern for Pennsylvania Governor
If one assumed that Gov. Wolf’s assumptions were based on competition between online gambling and land-based casinos, then the governor could be disabused of his notions. A recently launced online gambling think tank, iDevelopment and Economic Association (iDEA), was launched this week to release scientific research and public opinion pieces that counter the idea that online gambling hurts brick-and-mortar gambling numbers.
Unfortunately for the iGaming community, it is hard to get around the idea that the VLT legislation would hurt Las Vegas Sands’ business. To make the bill work for Tom Wolf, lawmakers might have to be convinced that the online gambling aspects of the bill will make up for the loss of revenues from VLTs.
The problem with that is Las Vegas Sands. LVS lobbyists are going to let any legislator who listens that the VLTs are a non-starter for them, while they are known detractors of online gambling in any form. No doubt, they will say the same to Tom Wolf, too.
