Online Gambling Market To Be Launched in Pennsylvania This Year
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf
Pennsylvania is all geared up for launching its newly established online gambling market sometime by the end of this year. The news came in after the PGCB or Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board executive director Kevin O’Toole made an announcement at the hearing of the House budget regarding the beginning of the casino licensing process on schedule from the next month. The state government has already begun accepting applications from the Daily Fantasy Sports operators for bringing in their operations to the state.
Pennsylvania stands among the only four states in the United States that have legalized online gambling within their borders. Although the online gambling bill H 271 was already signed into law by the government last October, the regulators have not yet revealed any stipulated timeframe for the launch of the gaming activities within the state.
At the House budget hearing, O’Toole revealed the government’s plans of creating a temporary set of rules and guidelines for the operation and regulation of the forthcoming online gambling market in the state. However, he did not share any further details of how exactly the process would be carried out.
While some of the most intricate details of the policy might still be under wraps, we do know that the state government will issue a total of 13 licenses to different casino operators in the state. The licenses would be further subdivided into smaller categories of sub-licenses that will be dedicated to each of the different online gaming products including poker, table games and slots. While each of the single product licenses would be priced at $4 million, the cost of all three online gaming products will be $10 million.
However, the regulators have not yet revealed as to how may skins will be allotted for every license. Skins may be defined as the interface of the gaming platforms that enable different websites to integrate the same gaming software for its operations. In its letter to the PGCB, the famous casino operator, Parx Casino urged the regulators to allot only a single skin to all the individual licensees. According to the operator, this would help in ensuring that the branding portrays the individual themes of the land based casinos and not the third party technology that is being used to bring it online.
