Gambling in the USA
Massive borrowing, gambling bills advance in Pennsylvania budget scramble
The last cinderblocks in a four-month stalemate over how to fix Pennsylvania’s deficit-riddled finances began falling Wednesday as Pennsylvania lawmakers worked into the night to advance massive borrowing and casino gambling measures.
Hundreds of pages of legislation — including a 470-page gambling bill first unveiled Wednesday evening — moved through the Legislature as top lawmakers bowed to concessions they had resisted since mid-summer.
The Senate voted 31-19 to approve its just-unveiled, far-reaching gambling expansion plan after months of talks as part of a wider budget agreement. Efforts to win its quick passage in the House ran late into Wednesday night, and debate was to continue Thursday morning.
Under it, Pennsylvania, already the nation’s No. 2 commercial casino state, could see casino-style gambling in truck stops, airports, online portals and 10 brand new casino locations around the state, each with hundreds of slot machines and possibly table games.
It also would make Pennsylvania the first state to allow both casino and lottery games online, in a quest for money from new and younger players. Bars would be frozen out of the package, despite the House’s long insistence that a gambling expansion should favor those businesses, rather than casino operators.
In House debate, House Gaming Oversight Committee Chairman Scott Petri, R-Bucks, warned lawmakers not to pass something that they had not read, and that the bill carried a raft of unintended consequences.
“If you pass this bill, you will see an explosion of gambling in Pennsylvania like you’ve never seen before,” Petri said.
The bill’s license fees and taxes on higher gambling losses is projected to net upward of $200 million a year for Pennsylvania, a state that already netted $1.4 billion in taxes from the industry last year.
However, Pennsylvania-headquartered Penn National said it will consider suing over the gambling package, if it becomes law, because of the “uniquely punitive impact” on the Hollywood Casino it owns in suburban Harrisburg.
Earlier Wednesday, the Senate approved a House plan that revolves around borrowing $1.5 billion — with interest, payback likely would cost more than $2 billion over 20 years — and a grab bag of tax increases that is projected to yield as much as $140 million a year. For months, the Senate and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf had sought a larger tax package and a lower borrowing limit, but ultimately found unyielding opposition from House Republicans.
Public finance analysts generally regard borrowing to pay operating costs as bad fiscal practice, and a last resort for a state in fiscal distress.
Along with tapping $500 million from off-budget funds, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, said gambling, tax and borrowing package should carry the current year’s spending, as well as next year’s.
“This should bring closure to the budget,” Corman said.
Pennsylvania has had spending authority since the fiscal year began July 1 under a nearly $32 billion budget bill that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved. However, it had a gaping, $2.2 billion hole in it, largely from state government’s biggest cash shortfall since the recession, and the ugly fight over how to fill it has pitted Wolf and the Republican-controlled Senate against the Republican-controlled House.
With perhaps a dozen budget-related bills passing the House and Senate this week, Wolf would not give his blessing to the package Wednesday. His office would only say that he would evaluate the bills.
“These bills contain many policy changes and deserve a full vetting,” Wolf’s office said.
In many ways, Wolf had moved on from the budget fight.
Three weeks ago, Wolf began exploring borrowing and cost-cutting avenues without the involvement of lawmakers, declaring he was finished waiting for House Republicans to compromise.
Paying bills on time has required short-term loans from the Treasury Department and more is expected to be necessary, with a $1.2 billion payment due to public schools Thursday.
The state did not emerge unscathed from the budget standoff. It got slapped with another credit downgrade, which will add more than $50 million a year in borrowing costs, according to Wolf’s office.
Amid threats of a mid-year tuition increase for tens of thousands of in-state students, the House released roughly $650 million in aid to Temple, Pitt, Lincoln, the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school and Penn State and its agricultural research and extension programs.
With lawmakers itching to depart the Capitol until November, a debate over imposing a tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas production will wait indefinitely, amid opposition by Republican leaders there.
Online sports betting operators are set to see record-breaking wagering on March Madness this year.
The three-week long, single-elimination, seven-round NCAA college basketball tournament got underway in Indiana on March 18 and runs until the Championship final on April 5.
The dramatic growth of sports betting popularity over the last two years has been attributed to the ever-expanding US legal market which has seen 14 new legal jurisdictions open up and offer legal sports gambling. This equates to almost 74 million more Americans being able to safely and legally bet on March Madness this year.
The latest state to offer sports betting was North Carolina which went legal on March 18 just in time for bettors to get involved in the March Madness action.
17.8 million say they will place a bet online, up 206% from 5.8 million in 2019.
According to a report published by the American Gaming Association (‘AGA’) $8.5 billion was gambled on March Madness in 2019 by 5.8 million people.
With 45% of American adults now living in a state with legalized sports betting the number of people doing their March Madness betting online is expected to top 17 million in 2021.
Offline bets are also estimated to increase this year with the number of Americans placing their college basketball bets at brick-and-mortar sportsbooks nearly doubling.
March Madness Key Dates:
- March 18-19: First Round
- March 20-21: Second Round
- March 25-26: Sweet 16
- March 27-28: Elite Eight
- April 3: Final Four
- April 5: National Championship
2021 March Madness Wagering Estimates
47.4 million American adults are expecting to bet on March Madness this year. That’s more than 20% of the population!
Although that’s about the same number that indicated they would bet on the tournament in 2019, the number of people betting with a sportsbook is set to rise dramatically.
Other key findings reported by the American Gaming Association:
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30.6 million Americans expect to place more traditional NCAA March Madness bets with sportsbooks on this year’s tournament, up from 17.8 million in 2019.
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8.3 million expect to place a bet at a physical sportsbook, up 79% from 2019.
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36.7 million Americans say they will fill out a bracket, down 8 percent from 2019.
Bill Miller, President and CEO, American Gaming Association said “The sports betting landscape has changed dramatically since 2019 – and as a result, tournament betting has transformed. With more legal, regulated options than ever before, millions of customers now have safer ways to enjoy all the fun and suspense only March Madness provides.”
This year, due to the global pandemic, the tournament will be held entirely in a single state (Indiana) with the Championship final game scheduled for April 5 at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
According to Vegas-Odds.com futures betting data from online sportsbooks – the teams most likely to take home the Championship trophy are the Gonzaga Bulldogs (+170), Baylor Bears (+375) and the Houston Cougars (+800).
More March Madness Facts & Stats:
- Gaming analysts Eilers & Krejcik estimated that if all 50 U.S. states had legal online sports betting, sportsbooks would handle $15.2 billion in total bets for March Madness alone, grossing about $1.2 billion of revenue.
- Interest in this NCAA men’s college basketball tournament is up slightly from 2019 with 26% of Americans saying they are very interested in March Madness, compared to 23% two years ago.
- Regulated Vs International Sportsbooks : $3.9 billion of bets will come mostly by way of international websites and bookmakers, though 4.1 million people will also place legal wagers through licensed U.S based casinos & sportsbook operators.
- The betting odds of predicting all 63 March Madness games correctly is 1 in 9.2 quintillion!
- The longest winning streak of NCAA tournament bracket picks to start the March Madness tournament stands at an astonishing 49, with an Ohio bettor correctly predicting the entire 2019 NCAA tournament into the Sweet 16 stage.
Casino operators in California are investing in the business to be able to compete with Las Vegas.
Casino operators in the State of California are innovating the market to strengthen its potential and be able to compete with the neighbouring city of Las Vegas, the most renowned gaming hub of the country. According to a recent study, 27 percent of tourists in Las Vegas come from the state of California.
Therefore, local native tribes that operate casinos in the region decided to further invest in innovative gaming services for residents and boost the regional economy. The operators are planning to improve current casino services by adding “integrated resorts, complete with shops, restaurants, spas and various other entertainment activities.”
Katherine Spilde, director of Sycuan Institute on Government Gaming at San Diego State University, explained: “The tribes are really responding to a mature tourist market.” And added: The integrated resort is the evolved model of gaming where the gaming is just one part of the larger experience.”
Meanwhile, the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians has recently held a pre-inauguration event celebrating the upcoming casino in California. The ceremony was held last Monday and authorities lifted white beams containing the signatures of tribal members, casino employees and construction workers to the top of the frame of the six-story hotel.
Canadian investment firm, Pollard Equities Limited has announced it has reached an agreement with NYX Gaming Group and Scientific Games Corporation to support the proposed acquisition of NYX by Scientific Games for $631m.
A shareholders meeting to discuss the proposed acquisition is scheduled for the 20 December in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The acquisition can proceed if a majority in number of NYX shareholders present and voting, either in person or by proxy, represent at least 75% in value of the NYX ordinary shares held by those NYX shareholders present and voting, either in person or by proxy (excluding those shares already held by Scientific Games) or by a simple majority of the votes cast by the holders of NYX ordinary shares.
At present Pollard Equities Limited owns 8,621,300 ordinary shares of NYX and 4,000,000 warrants having upped its number of warrants last month in a CDN$120,000 deal bringing its potential stake in NYX Gaming up to 11.2%.
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