With the time running out on its legislative session, the Pennsylvania state legislature has yet to act on funding their Fiscal Year 2017 budget, leaving in limbo the future of online gaming and/or poker in the state in limbo. As of yet, however, the members of the legislature haven’t exactly tipped their hands as to what will happen in the next few weeks.
If you’ll recall, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a $31.8 million budget in June, but didn’t include a way to pay for the said budget. The budget, which sat on Governor Tom Wolf’s desk for the maximum time allowed under Pennsylvania law, was missing one key component, however: how to go about paying for everything. The discussion for that issue was tabled until the fall session of the General Assembly, which is coming up in the next few weeks.
According to the legislative calendar for the Keystone State, there are exactly three more sessions where legislative duties will be completed. Those are the following time frames:
September 26-28
October 17-19
October 24-26
At some point during the three sessions, the discussion for how the state will pay for the current Fiscal Year’s budget will come up, at which point the discussion of whether online gaming and poker – which was left in the last budget discussions before now – will have its greatest chances of being passed.
There are several options that face legislators regarding the proposed online gaming and poker regulation. They could pass the current spending package “as is,” which would automatically push through the bill and make Pennsylvania the fourth state to regulate online gaming and poker. There is some discussion, however, that some members of the Senate are not pleased with some of the caveats of the online gaming bill – which has in the past included discussion of slot machines in airports and video gaming – which could force renegotiation of the gaming bill.
Then there is the other potential facing the legislature. Pennsylvania legislators have already added to taxes on alcohol and have also started a tax on online spending, such as for Netflix, music downloads or books. But those taxes alone will not get the state to entirely fund their $31 billion budget. There are other methods that might get passed instead of online gaming, methods that, even in an unfriendly tax increase environment (as which exists in the General Assembly, a Republican-dominated body), may be considered before increasing the amount of gambling in the state.
The state could increase the sales tax by as little as a half a percent (from 6% to 6.5%) and find every bit of the money that is necessary for funding the shortfall that currently exists in the budget discussions, which is slightly more than $300 million. The state could also cut the budget (even though it has been signed into law by Wolf) or decide not to fund certain segments of the government as “non-essential” entities. There is also very little discussion as to who the supporters of online gaming and poker are in the State Senate.
On Tuesday, the state’s citizens (and those in the industry) will get some clue with a hearing being held by the Pennsylvania House Gaming Oversight Committee and its chairman, Representative John Payne. Payne was integral to getting the House to pass online gaming regulations before the “summer break” and it is thought that the hearing will help the Senate be able to pass regulation. The hearing will focus on what has occurred in other states that have passed online gaming regulations and fantasy sports regulation and how it could be beneficial to the state of Pennsylvania. That hearing, which will start at 9AM on September 27, will be key to seeing what the current temperature is of online gaming and poker regulation for the state.
