The day after we celebrated the nation’s 238th birthday Pennsylvania marked the 10th anniversary of the passage of legalized slot machine gaming. Sure, there was nowhere near the fanfare, fireworks, cookouts, etc. but marking a decade since gaming became legal deserves some attention.
Though the law authorized up to 14 casinos, the state is still holding at 12 at the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year. There could be one more in Philadelphia and possibly one in Lawrence County. Table games were added in 2010 and total slot machine wagers stood at $30.8 billion in 2012-13.
So where are we a decade later in terms of how gaming has affected public policy? We have written two critical reports on gaming in the last year. In September of 2013, we tracked the distribution and churn of gaming money into and within Allegheny County via property tax relief, economic development agreements, local share, etc. and last month we released a study of school property taxes during the Act 1 years which showed the estimated homestead relief in the County’s school districts per year.
