The auction for Pennsylvania’s ‘mini-casino’ licenses lasted all of 60 seconds
The new casinos can be built no closer than 40 miles to an existing casino or satellite casino, leaving very little unclaimed territory left in Pennsylvania where potential bidders could locate a new casino, except for some sparsely-populated areas of central and northern Pennsylvania.
When presented with a long-shot bet, Pennsylvania’s casinos apparently know what to do with their money.
At a legislatively mandated auction for a new mini-casino license on Wednesday, none of the state’s 13 casinos stepped forward to pay a minimum of $7.5 million for a satellite gambling outlet, also known as a Category 4 casino.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board last year generated $127.7 million from the sale of five mini-casino licenses. The board has formally approved only two of the licenses so far, and none of the facilities has opened yet. But the legislature this year passed a law ordering the board to conduct another round of auctions to test the market anew for satellite casinos.
It’s now official: The market for new casino licenses in Pennsylvania is tapped out.
An Expansive Area Off-Limits to Mini-Casinos
Legislation prohibits new gambling halls within 40 miles of an existing casino or mini-casino. Many municipalities have also chosen to prohibit the construction of new casinos. The exclusion zones from these factors blanket all of the southeastern and southwestern parts of the state, and most of south-central Pennsylvania.
Existing or licensed
casino
Approved sites
for mini-casinos
Areas prohibited
to future
mini-casinos
Mini-casinos
allowed
N
MILES
0
25
Presque
Isle Downs
81
79
Mohegan Sun
84
Mount Airy
80
80
Mount Airy Pittsburgh
476
Sands
78
Hollywood Casino
at Penn National
Rivers
Hollywood
Casino
Morgantown
Live! Casino
Meadows
Parx
Valley
Forge
70
Parx Shippensburg
76
76
Sugar
House
Hollywood
Casino York
Lady Luck Casino
Nemacolin
81
Live!
Phila.
1
Harrah’s
Existing or licensed
casino
Approved sites
for mini-casinos
Areas prohibited
to future
mini-casinos
Mini-casinos
allowed
The auction was over in less than 60 seconds. With no interest from bidders, David M. Barasch, the board’s chairman, canceled further auctions.
Only the state’s 13 licensed casinos can build satellite casinos, which can contain as many as 750 slot machines and as many as 40 table games.
The auction was held in response to legislation approved this year that required the state to conduct as many as five rounds of bidding for the licenses, starting no later than Sept. 4 and concluding by Dec. 31. If no bids are received in any rounds, the auction process will conclude.
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The law specifies that the new casinos can be built no closer than 40 miles to an existing casino or satellite casino, leaving very little unclaimed territory left in Pennsylvania where potential bidders could locate a new casino, except for some sparsely populated areas of central and northern Pennsylvania. More than 1,000 of the state’s 2,500 municipalities opted out of hosting mini-casinos.
The mini-casinos are unique to Pennsylvania, which authorized them in a 2017 law that dramatically expanded gambling opportunities in the state, including authorizing sports betting, internet gaming, video gaming terminals in truck stops, and interactive lottery.
The state in June formally approved the first satellite casino license for Penn National’s Hollywood Casino Morgantown in Berks County, and last month approved the Live! Casino Pittsburgh in Westmoreland County. The Westmoreland site will be operated by Stadium Casino LLC, whose flagship Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia is under construction at 900 Packer Ave. in Philadelphia.
Penn National also won the rights to build a second mini-casino in the York Galleria Mall, Mount Airy Casino Resort won the rights to place a satellite casino north of Pittsburgh, and Parx Casino in Bensalem plans to build a satellite casino in Shippensburg, just off I-81.
The directive for the new satellite casino auctions was included in Senate Bill 712, a hodgepodge of spending and revenue amendments to the fiscal code that Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law on June 28 as Act 20.
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