Earlier this week, we reported that another Pennsylvania internet gambling bill was in the works and yesterday that bill was introduced. Senate Bill 900 addresses a number of gaming issues for the Commonwealth, but most relevant to you is the part about online gambling. SB 900 is the first bill to deal with online gambling to be introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Kim Ward and co-sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, Sen. Robert Tomlinson, and Sen. Elder Vogel. Sen. Camera Bartolotta and Sen. Patrick Stefano are also listed on the bill. All six Senators are Republicans.
The relevant portion of the bill is Chapter 13B, about a quarter of the way through the hefty document. In the Declaration of Intent, SB 900’s authors write:
Since the development of the Internet, millions of people have chosen to gamble online through illegal off-shore operators without regulatory oversight or consumer protections. Federal law permits individual states to authorize intrastate Internet gambling, provided that the wagers are made exclusively within the authorizing state. An effective State Internet gaming statute would:
(i) provide public trust in Internet gaming;
(ii) ensure that Internet games are fair and safe; and
(iii) strictly regulate the conduct of Internet gaming in this Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth’s effective regulation of Internet gaming will maintain the success of slot machine and table games gaming at its existing licensed facilities and sustain the taxes, jobs, investment and economic development produced by those licensed facilities.
Those eligible to apply for internet gaming permits are operators already licensed to operate table games and slot machines, the former of which must be either Category 1 or Category 2 license holders. These are the state’s “racinos” (horse racetracks / casinos) and stand-alone casinos. Category 3 licensees, not listed as eligible in the bill, are the larger, resort-style casinos that have hotels and other facilities in addition to a casino. The permit, if approved, is valid for five years and comes with an initial $10 million permit fee. It costs $1 million to renew.
It is certainly possible that any of the Commonwealth’s casinos will develop their own software, but if they don’t, the software provider must also receive a separate license from the state.
Similar to New Jersey, the physical servers and equipment used to operate online gambling sites must be located on the premises of the operator. That is, they must be on casino property, not farmed out somewhere else in the state. Backup serves and storage may be located elsewhere, though, which makes sense.
As for players, as is the case in other states, individuals must be at least 21-years old to create an online gambling account. Interestingly, accounts may not be created online, but rather must be opened at the physical casino that operates the gaming site. Account holders must also “hold an active players club membership” with the casino. The one exception to the in-person account creation requirement is for those who live too far away from a casino. In (13)(a)(4), it states, “The board shall promulgate regulations for an individual who resides at least 20 linear miles from a facility to allow the individual to become an account holder using the Internet website of a licensed gaming entity.”
Deposits can be made by cash, check, money order, wire, debit card, or credit card.
We could continue to go on, detailing all the rules and regulations laid out in the bill, but we won’t. Rather, we will direct you to the SB 900 page on the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s website if you want to read it all. One thing that does not seem to be included in the bill, fortunately, is a “bad actor” clause, meaning that sites like PokerStars that accepted U.S. customers after the UIGEA passed in 2006 may still be eligible to apply for an internet gaming permit.