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A bill to allow online poker in New Hampshire was defeated in the state’s House, which voted 23 to 0 that the bill was “inexpedient to legislate.”

The vote means the bill should be revisited during the next legislative session. The bill was introduced in January, but gained little traction throughout the year and failed to make it out of committee.

New Hampshire does allow online lottery services, giving some hope to proponents, but the bill stalled regardless. The bill also did not spell out any specifics on how online poker would be regulated and taxed.

Hustler publisher and casino magnate Larry Flynt challenged a California law that prevents him from expanding his gaming empire—and lost.

Last week a federal judge dismissed with prejudice Flynt’s challenge to a Golden State law, the Gambling Registration Act, that was intended to prevent the mob from buying casinos or investing in them outside of the state.

Flynt, the owner of Hustler Casino and Larry Flynt’s Lucky Lady Casino, claimed that a California law that wouldn’t allow him to invest in out-of-state casino properties several years ago was outdated and violated his due process rights. The same law prevents residents of other states who have gaming licenses from obtaining licenses to operate a cardroom in California.

Flynt and his son-in-law Haig Kelegian Sr. argued that there hasn’t been a mob influence in Nevada in many years and that state has updated its laws so that publically traded companies to run casinos there. They said California should do the same.

Kelegian ran afoul of the existing law when he transferred ownership of an out-of-state casino to his spouse. He was fined $210,000. Flynt complained that under the law he could lose his interest in businesses based outside of California if they entered the gaming industry.

The judge rejected the complaint, finding that Flynt and his co-plaintiffs had failed to show that they would be subject to continuing harm by the law. They have vowed to appeal.

The Tropicana Las Vegas has seen hotel bookings fall 35 percent in the aftermath of the October 1 mass shooting on that Strip that left 58 dead and almost 500 wounded.

The Tropicana, located on the south Strip, not far where the shooting occurred at an outdoor music festival hosted on property owned by MGM Resorts International, saw the fall-off mostly in October and spilling over into November, said owner Penn National Gaming.

“Of the 35 percent increase in cancellations year over year (at the Tropicana), 80 percent of those were isolated to October and November,” said Penn President and COO Jay Snowden, speaking on a conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter results.

“The cancellations were largely in the leisure-online travel agency segment,” he added. “In our group business, we didn’t have any cancellations and our casino block has held out very well. It’s really that leisure business that decided to cancel in the fourth quarter. We’ll see how it plays out in Q1 (2018).”

Penn is the first operator to quantify cancellations tied to the impact of the massacre, which was perpetrated by a lone gunman who rained automatic rifle fire on the festival audience for an estimated 10 minutes from a suite near the top of MGM’s Mandalay Bay. He reportedly killed himself as police closed in.

MGM is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Wednesday, but it’s not clear whether the company will address cancellations.

Caesars Entertainment CEO Mark Frissora has said the company’s Strip properties have seen a decline, though Caesars has not detailed it to Penn’s extent and has stressed only that it’s mostly been seen among Asian guests.

“Because people in Asia are very respectful of the deaths that occurred, and they believe there should be a period of mourning,” he recently told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “They wait for that period of mourning before they’ll return. I’ve heard that it’s sometimes a period of three months, four months, in that range.”

Wynn Resorts Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn addressed the impacts at some length during his company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 26, noting that Wynn has been working with MGM and Las Vegas Sands to develop plans for aiding victims of the shooting, two of them Wynn employees.

“The industry is getting together. We’re taking complete inventory of all of the damage that was done to the people there,” he said.

Wynn took the occasion of the call to emphasize the comprehensive nature of the measures his company has introduced, boosting security spending by $6 million-$7 million, to protect its properties from a similar disaster. They include experimental new technologies that can identify metal objects on a patron or underneath a patron’s clothing through a television screen.

“We beat the bushes to find out everything that we could throw at this problem to harden as a target, with the idea that if someone was looking at the hotel, they would see that we had met the threat level in a number of ways and they’d move on someplace else,” he explained. “This would be a tough place to survive for more than three minutes if you had a gun on you.”

On Penn’s call, CEO Tim Wilmott made it a point to applaud the Tropicana staff for their response to the tragedy.

“We had hundreds and hundreds of concert-goers come into our facility seeking shelter,” he said. “Our team there never trained for this, but they reacted heroically and were able to bring comfort, compassion, shelter, help the wounded get to health-care facilities, provide blankets, sheets, pillows to a large number of people who stayed overnight in our ballroom. They were the real heroes of our company that night. I wanted to say thank you again for a job well done.”

Steve Wynn’s newest attraction on the Las Vegas Strip, Paradise Park, will break ground January 3.

“We’re in the very final stages of getting building permits, and hard construction should start by March and April,” the chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts said during a conference call with analysts to announce the company’s third-quarter earnings.

He also unveiled an expanded vision for the project, which will be located behind his Wynn and Encore casino hotels. A new carnival-themed attraction will be added, featuring a carousel rotating over a lagoon, electric bumper cars and a nighttime parade with floats in which guests can participate.

Significantly, it also will include a hotel, which was not part of the design as Wynn described it earlier this year. As currently planned, the venue will comprise 1,500 rooms and will feature a casino, restaurants and dedicated convention space.

“We would leave room for everything,” he said on the call, “master plan it, but build at first the park that would immediately power up our existing restaurants, our existing casino, our existing convention meeting and catering operation.”

Zip lines, fireworks shows and other attractions on the boardwalk that surrounds the lagoon also will be part of the mix.

It also will include space for other developers to build as partners.

“We are leaving 40-60 acres on the far east of the project open for development in the future. And we are talking with several applicants or possibilities who already are in negotiations with us.”

The quarter was a banner one the Nasdaq-listed resort giant, whose four casino hotels―Wynn Las Vegas and Encore and Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace in Macau―generated $1.161 billion in net revenues for the 12 weeks ended September 30. The results beat the same period last year by more than $502 million, a 45 percent increase.

Net income was $79.8 million versus a Q3 16 net loss of $17.4 million, boosting net income per diluted share from 17 cents to 78 cents.

A 2016 University of Amherst study shows that almost 80 percent of the revenue generated by Plainridge Park Casino, the Bay State’s first casino to open, in June 2015, came from state residents.

The study: “Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts,” showed that 11.4 percent came from the town of Plainville or nearby towns, while 66.5 percent came from other Massachusetts cities. Nineteen percent came from out of state.

The data was presented last week to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. It was the second of two presentations made to the commission.

The study and its periodic reports to the panel are baked into the law that set up the casinos.

Those were patrons who had previously traveled out of state, mainly to Rhode Island or the two Indian casinos in Connecticut. That means that the casino is doing what lawmakers had hoped when they voted in 2011 to expand gaming: to keep money home. About $100,000 was “recaptured” during the casino’s first year of operation, said the study.

Lead researcher Mark Melnik in a statement said, “We were able to use the survey results to estimate that the majority of the money spent at PPC would have been spent out of state if gambling had never expanded in Massachusetts.”

Last month Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby remarked that the data so far showed that the law was working as intended.

The comprehensive study was the first of its kind to be authorized by a state government and is now considered the gold standard for gaming studies. It is also multi-year and will continue to follow not only who is using the state’s casinos, but how gaming is affecting its host communities and the economic impacts on the populace as a whole.

Commissioner Enrique Zuniga commented, “No other gaming commission in the country has this type of information at their fingertips to inform policy and make data-driven decisions.”

Another researcher on the team, Rachel Volberg, added, “The survey is a tool that allows us to collect data from patrons about where they come from and how much they spend, which is important for understanding the economic impacts of the casino.”

The survey of 479 visitors identified the average casino customer as older, white, well educated and with an annual household income of from $50,000-$100,000. It showed that 87 percent of players were slots players, while 12 percent preferred electronic versions of traditional table games such as blackjack and roulette. Plainridge Park is a racino, so 8 percent of the revenue came from live or simulcast horse racing.

MGM Springfield

MGM Springfield has revealed some of the details and vendors that the casino will boast when it opens in less than a year in the third largest city in Massachusetts.

They will include Candlepin bowling, a variation of bowling played mainly in parts of Canada and New England, said MGM Springfield General Manager Alex Dixon. The bowling variant will be offered along with standard bowling, he told the Republican.

“If it’s what your local community wants, it just doesn’t make sense not to include those things,” he said. He noted that the company plans to open the first eight stories of the building in January. These will administrative offices, he said.

The ninth through the 11th floors will be dedicated to a school for table game dealers run cooperative with two local community colleges. A pre-employment office will open at the Colvest Building, which is near the casino’s main footprint.

Dixon confirmed that the casino plans to buy locally grown, sustainable produce, and said that this helps farms and produces higher quality fare at casino restaurants.

Next week Maine voters will decide whether an initiative that would give one individual, Shawn Scott, or a company owned by him, the right to build the state’s third casino—in York County—will pass muster. Hanging like a Sword of Damocles over the campaign is the possibility the state’s ethics commission could levy a fine of as much as $4 million on it days before the vote.

So far, the pro Question 1 campaign has outspent the opposition by a factor 7 to 1 or $9 million to $600,000, in spite of the fact that the opposition includes the owner of a casino that would probably be financially harmed if a competing casino opens.

The first $4 million was spent on the effort to qualify the measure by gathering signatures. During the election campaign itself, Maine Public reports that Progress for Maine has spent $1.7 million on television ads, $127,000 on radio ads and $700,000 on a Washington-based consulting firm: Goddard Gunster—the same one that guided the successful Brexit effort last year in Great Britain. It is providing consulting services, is guiding social media, website creation and maintenance and producing ads for television and print.

The international firm is one of the winningest ballot measure consultants in the world. Besides its Brexit campaign, it has also helped fight efforts to tax sodas in the U.S.

Progress for Maine has also paid former Maine Attorney General Andrew Ketterer to represent it and paid $25,000 to the Aroostook Band of Micmacs to be campaign consultants.

A Bad Deal, the main group fighting the measure, has spent more than $600,000, most on TV ads. Its funding comes from a subsidiary of Churchill Downs, the owner of the Oxford Casino.

The fact that Question 1 made it to the ballot has not stopped the investigation of the Maine Ethics Commission from continuing full speed ahead due to the murky funding of the initial effort to gather signatures last year. That funding, which came from Scott and companies he either owns or is associated with, was kept hidden for more than a year.

Last week, in the last stages of the probe, the commission took 10 hours of testimony and cross-examined lawyers for Lisa Scott, Shawn Scott’s sister, Augusta lobbyist Cheryl Timberlake, who was the campaign’s treasurer, and donors to the campaign. Timberlake and Scott each tried to say that the other was at fault for not reporting donations from companies that operate outside of the U.S.—something that is illegal—and domestic firms. All are connected to Shawn Scott in some way.

For more than a year Lisa Scott was listed as the only donor to the campaign. Then, in April 2017 a filing revealed that several companies were involved. Initially she and her attorneys rejected subpoenas from the commission and only agreed open private financial records as long as records that had not connection to the campaign were kept sealed.

Timberlake protested that she knew nothing about other donors to the campaign, describing them as a “corporate veil,” and claimed that Lisa Scott was “the face and manager of this initiative.” She said she didn’t know about other fund transfers.

Lisa Scott’s attorney claimed that she relied on Timberlake’s counsel and added that everyone in the Horseracing Jobs Fairness campaign knew that the companies involved were Scott’s companies. The attorney, Bruce Merrill, accused Timberlake of pretending not to know this fact in order to escape being fined. He declared, “I don’t think Cheryl would admit that today is Halloween if either myself or Mr. Mina asked her that question. I believe she’s scared. I believe she’s afraid and I believe she’s put herself in a position that she can’t extricate herself from.”

Ethics director Jonathan Wayne noted that Timberlake and Scott had given testimony that clearly differed widely, but told the five-person commission it didn’t matter.

“Because the burden is not on you to figure out any particular state of mind,” he said. “You don’t have to decide who’s lying or who did this intentionally, or who did this carelessly. You just need to know that reports have not been filed on time and consequences to the public were significant.” State law stipulates that if a fine is recommended, it could be as high as the amount that was hidden, or $4 million.

In late August, as the ethics investigation heated up, Lisa Scott left the campaign, moving back to Florida and her brother became the actual and public head of the campaign.

The commission was scheduled vote on the fine five days prior to the election. The Progress for Maine campaign has asked that any fines imposed be done after the November 7 election.

Rebecca Foster, a spokesman for Progress for Maine, last week published an op-ed in several Maine newspapers, challenged the assertion that “only one person will benefit” from the York casino by declaring, “This project will create some $175 million in new capital investment, thousands of jobs and an estimated $45 million in annual tax revenue, which, by law, would help fund a host of state priorities. It also would create new opportunities from non-gaming ventures with the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, a Maine tribe with a long history that, to date, has been denied any benefits from the state’s gaming industry.”

On October 12 Progress for Maine issued a press release announcing the tribe’s support of Question 1. It quoted Tribal Chief Edward Peter-Paul: “We’re proud to support Yes on Question 1 because the backers of the measure have made a commitment to the tribe – to help bring new economic opportunity to us so that we can continue on our path towards achieving self-reliance,” who added, “Though we are a federally recognized tribe, we receive no funding from the Oxford Casino and its Kentucky-based ownership – Churchill Downs Inc. Yes on 1 wants to fix that for us.”

Progress for Maine promises that it will generate $11 million for public education, $3 million in property tax relief, $3 million for scholarships, $1.2 million for the host community, $15 million to benefit the horse racing industry plus some money for the general fund and veterans.

This is the second time that Shawn Scott has led a casino election campaign in Maine. The first time was 2003 when voters authorized transforming the racetrack in Bangor, the Bangor Raceway, into the state’s first slots parlor. It eventually became Hollywood Slots and is now called Hollywood Casino. Scott sold the rights to that casino to Penn National Gaming for $51 million after racing officials began an ethics investigation.

This time the license could be valued as much as $200 million, according to state officials.

One of the major critics of the initiative is Governor Paul LePage who declared recently: “Maine’s referendum process has been hijacked by big money, out-of-state interests hoping to pull the wool over your eyes.”

As the day for balloting approaches Maine legislators are calling for reforming the initiative process that would make it harder for an out-of-state operator such as Scott, to “hijack” the process and qualify a measure that would benefit just one person. And that person doesn’t even live in the state, they point out. Scott is a resident of Saipan, a U.S. territory. Other backers come from Japan, California, New York, Miami and Las Vegas. The New York-based back, Atlantic and Pacific Capital Realty LLC, directed $1.8 million into the campaign during 47 days this summer.

The chairmen of the state’s powerful Government Oversight Committee are calling the Question 1 effort a “case study” that shows how easy it is the bend the process to benefit a special interest.

Senator Roger Katz supports a proposal to direct the committee’s investigative staff to review the initiative process and make recommendations to the committee on how to reform the process or even call on the voters to amend the state constitution.

Katz said he’s not concerned about more gaming in the state, per se, but rather how the process can be manipulated by a single special interest. Most initiatives are funded by interests within the state, although many attract funding from out of state interests.

Although the signature drive was successful last year, it was actually the second effort to qualify the casino vote for the ballot. The first time, in 2016, the state Secretary of State’s Office rejected more than half of the 91,294 signatures that were turned in. The campaign had to start again from scratch and in January of last year turned in more than the 61,000 that were needed.

Maine has two casinos already, Bangor’s Hollywood Casino, owned by Penn, and the Oxford Casino, owned by Churchill Downs. The latter collected more than $761 million from slot machines last year and paid $29.8 in taxes. It collected $15.6 million in table games and paid $2.5 million in taxes.

Hollywood Casino collected $43 million from slots in 2016 and paid $15.3 in taxes. It took in $9.1 million from table games and paid $1.4 million in taxes.

As noted above, the Oxford Casino has paid $600,000 to fund A Bad Deal for Maine.

The owners of Philadelphia casino SugarHouse have dropped the lawsuit challenging the award of the second city casino license to Stadium Casino, after a portion of the gaming expansion bill signed into law last week rendered it moot.

SugarHouse filed its challenge based on questions surrounding the ownership stake in the new stadium-district casino hotel of London-based businessman Watche Manoukian, who has a majority stake in Greenwood Gaming, owner of Parx and, with Baltimore’s Cordish Companies, a partner in the new casino. The suit was based on the provision of Pennsylvania’s 2004 gaming law that forbade any party owning 85 percent or more of an existing casino from owning more than a one-third stake in a second casino.

A provision of the new gaming law—not without criticism for its pork-barrel nature—repeals the ownership restrictions of the 2004 law. A Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board spokesman told the Associated Press that the agency considers the matter closed, and the lawsuit was withdrawn as moot.

The clearing of the case removes the last obstacle that was delaying construction on the Stadium Casino project, to be called Philadelphia Live! in line with the national Cordish entertainment brand. The board reports that Live! will pay the $50 million fee for its slot machine license around November 15. The new casino, located near all the Philadelphia professional sports stadiums and arenas, will be adjacent to an existing hotel, a Holiday Inn that will be renovated and rebranded.

Saying that legalized sports betting is an “inevitability” in the U.S., Don Garber, commissioner of Major League Soccer, said he would like to see his league be at the forefront of expanding the industry.

Garber was speaking at a Yahoo Finance event and said that sports betting is already popular worldwide, especially where it concerns soccer.

 “Gambling on games, betting on games, is part of the DNA of football around the world,” he said. “I am a big proponent that it’s going to happen. We might as well be in front of it. I think there are great values to our tax revenues to be able to do that. I don’t think we can stop it, so maybe we’d even lead the charge.”

In his comments, Garber joins NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in expressing support for legal sports betting in the U.S.

Still, the NBA is part of a challenge to New Jersey’s efforts to allow sports betting in the state. The MLS is not opposing the move. New Jersey’s appeal of lower court rulings against it is schedule to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in December.

New Jersey is challenging the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which outlawed sports betting in all but four grandfathered states—including Nevada. The four largest US sports leagues—the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL—along with the NCAA have opposed the state’s moves to allow sports betting.

If New Jersey prevails and the court strikes down PASPA, Garber said his league could be a leader in sports betting.

“One of the only values of being the youngest major league here, and sometimes being under the radar… is I think it gives us the opportunity to push the envelope on a number of different things,” Garber said. “I do believe that we could lead this effort, because I don’t know that everybody will see soccer as having the same challenges that perhaps would exist if the NFL was going to come out in support of it.”

Doubts remain over iGaming slot tax

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf last week signed a budget reconciliation bill into law that also enacts the largest expansion of gaming since the state first legalized casinos in 2004.

Wolf’s signature makes Pennsylvania the fourth U.S. state to legalize online gaming, joining New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada. In Pennsylvania’s case, iGaming comes with a unique twist—casino operators both inside and outside of Pennsylvania may apply for licenses to operate gambling websites for PC and mobile applications for use by people located within Pennsylvania’s borders. License fees are $4 million each for online poker, online table games and online slot games—or $10 million for all three.

Current Pennsylvania casino licensees get first preference for the licenses, but If licenses remain unclaimed after the initial rollout, the state will license out-of-state operators piecemeal on those three segments at a fee of $4 million each.

The out-of-state provision was added because it is unclear how many current Pennsylvania casinos will apply for iGaming licenses, particularly to operate online slot games, which are by far the most profitable for New Jersey and Delaware online sites. (Nevada has online poker only.) The law sets the revenue tax at 14 percent for online poker and table games, but at a brick-and-mortar-style 52 percent for online slots. Many operators have already stated they cannot operate online slots profitably at a 52 percent tax rate.

“The rate for slots is high, and I don’t know how well casinos will do with that,” state Rep. George Dunbar told the Associated Press. “It’s something they’ll have to figure out internally. Hopefully, we didn’t put too high a number that will be prohibitive. The more casinos that are involved, the better finished product that we’ll have.”

Aside from the slot element, the potential to combine Pennsylvania’s population with the other three iGaming states to create pooled games is being viewed as a potential profit-generator for the poker sites created under the law.

Online gaming is only one of many gaming expansions enacted when Wolf signed the budget law. Gaming is projected to fill $200 million of the state’s $2.2 billion budget deficit with not only iGaming, but with a smorgasbord of other gaming expansions. Among the most prominent is a provision for up to 10 satellite casinos spread across the state in areas that do not currently have casinos.

Each of the state’s 10 larger casinos may bid on a satellite casino license that would allow up to 750 slot machines and 10 table games at a location that is outside a radius 25 miles from an existing casino. Bidding will start at $7.5 million, with table-game licenses costing an additional $2.5 million. License fees and taxes will go to local and state governments, public schools and civic development.

In addition to new satellite casinos, the law expands gambling to the airports, where current licensees can apply to operate interactive gaming parlors with tablet gaming at eight regional and international airports; and to truck stops, which are authorized to add five video gaming terminals, or VGTs, with revenue split among the operators, the state and the local host municipalities.

The VGT provision applies to truck stops that sell an average of 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel a month, have at least 20 parking spaces for trucks, have a convenience store, are current lottery retailers, and occupy at least a 3-acre parcel of land not owned by the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It falls far short of the VGT bill passed by the state House, which would have authorized up to 10 VGTs at each of thousands of liquor-licensed establishments. Many House members have vowed to continue fighting for expanded VGT authorization.

The law contains a provision allowing counties hosting current casinos to opt out of the VGT authorization, banning the truck-stop VGTs within their jurisdictions. Counties seeking to opt out must adopt a resolution in council and submit it to the state no later than December 30.

Among other changes in the law:

• The state’s two Class III resort-style casinos can now pay a fee to be relieved of the entry and slot-number limitations of the 2004 law.

• The new law also authorizes regulation and tax of daily fantasy sports betting, with DFS operators charge a $50,000 license fee with 15 percent of revenues going to the state. The law makes Pennsylvania the 17th state to enact a DFS law.

• The Pennsylvania Lottery is now authorized to offer instant ticket, lotto keno and other games online. The lottery may not offer casino-style games other than keno.

• Should the federal ban on sports betting be lifted, Pennsylvania casinos can apply to the gaming board to offer sports betting for a license fee of $10 million. Online sports betting will also be allowed.

• The casino host fee to local governments, struck down last year by the state Supreme Court, is reinstated at a flat $10 million annual fee to local governments.

Wolf, who previously opposed many of the gaming expansions he signed into law, told reporters after signing the bill that the package represents the best scenario for gaming expansion. “There’s been a lot of pressure from a lot of places in the commonwealth to actually expand this, and we do need some recurring revenue,” Wolf said, according to the Allentown Morning Call.

“Again, the goal has been all along to do what’s prudent, and not cannibalize existing gambling revenue coming to the state. And, I think what we’re settling on will actually do that.”

Some stakeholders in Pennsylvania moved quickly upon enactment of the legislation. Valley Forge Casino, one of the two resort-class properties, has already paid the $1 million fee to remove the restrictions of the 2004 law, which required membership fees or a minimum non-gaming spend for entry to the casino. The casino released a press release announcing the change to customers.

“Since opening five years ago, we have been constrained by the amenities requirements and membership fees which have confused and frustrated our guests,” said Valley Forge Casino Resort President and CEO Eric Pearson in the release. “We are thrilled to be able to welcome our guests to our casino in the same manner as the other Pennsylvania casinos. Lifting this special requirement for guests to enter the casino allows us to better serve our existing guests, and puts us in a better position to attract new visitors to our property.”

In Lawrence County, the Western Pennsylvania location of the ill-fated Lawrence Downs casino project—a license that is still dormant—Commissioner Dan Vogler announced that the county will pursue one of the satellite “mini-casinos” authorized under the law. According to a report in the New Castle News, county commissioners will meet with tourism and local chambers of commerce to determine the best location for the casino before submitting a bid.

And in the Lehigh Valley, the bill caused a surprise about-face from state Senator Lisa Boscola, one of the chamber’s biggest opponents of casino gaming and particular online gaming, as she represents the district where Sands Bethlehem—its parent company run by well-known iGaming foe Sheldon Adelson—is located.

Boscola voted for the expansion package and the online gaming it brings, because one of the perks in the law is release of $20 million in local-improvement funding to be used for a new science center in her jurisdiction.

Other potential reactions came in from as far away as Great Britain. Major iGaming news website Onlinecasino.co.uk speculated that Pennsylvania’s regulation of online poker and daily fantasy sports could reignite discussions of a possible customer-sharing pool with British iGaming sites.

“As part of the UK Gambling Commission’s drive to improve its services and make its market the best in the world, sharing resources with other countries has long been discussed,” wrote columnist George White for the site. “In light of this, the regulation of online poker, casino gaming and daily fantasy sports in Pennsylvania could bring talks of a possible deal back to the fore.”

Pennsylvania’s legalization of online gaming comes at the end of a five-year legislative battle, but lawmakers in some other states considering iGaming see it as a potential momentum-builder for their own online gaming proposals.

Lawmakers in West Virginia and Louisiana last week called for updates to their own gaming laws in wake of the Pennsylvania passage. “With (Pennsylvania) passing sports betting, online poker and daily fantasy legislation today, we must act this session or be left in the dust,” West Virginia state Rep. Shawn Fluharty said on social media, according to Card Player magazine.

And Louisiana state Senator Ronnie Johns has initiated a review of that state’s 1991 gaming law with an eye toward remaining competitive in light of the new Pennsylvania law, according to a report on the America’s Cardroom website.

Meanwhile, problem gambling groups, while not outright opposing Pennsylvania’s gaming expansion, are advising caution going forward. “At a minimum, (legislators should) make sure that there are protections that follow along with the National Council on Problem Gambling’s recommendations—both for the online option as well as for the stand-alone satellite casinos,” said Josh Ercole, chief operating officer of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania, in an interview with WITF Radio Pennsylvania.

The law new doesn’t take effect until December 22—60 days after Wolf’s signature. After that, the state Gaming Control Board will promulgate regulations and hand out licenses to conduct iGaming, satellite casinos and the other expanded offerings. Observers predict that online gaming sites should be ready to launch by the second half of 2018.

Glen Straub, owner of the closed Revel casino in Atlantic City, has begun another legal battle with New Jersey, this time over taxes he is paying on the former casino.

Straub wants the state to remove Revel from its payment in lieu of taxes program for city casinos. The state passed a bill setting set payments for casinos in an effort to halt costly tax re-assessments that had been crippling the city’s municipal budget.

Straub has filed the suit in Atlantic County Superior Court. The suit says Revel should be taxed as a vacant building and not as an operating casino under the PILOT program. Revel was closed when the state’s PILOT program went into effect a year ago and the suit points out that Straub has never owned the property while it functioned as a casino.

Straub bought the close property for $82 million out of bankruptcy court in 2015. The property closed in 2014.

“The PILOT Act penalizes it by requiring it to pay based on the fact that at one time the property was licensed to operate as a casino, but does not generate the level of revenue as casino properties because no casino operates there and, in fact, never did operate there in the entire ownership period of the plaintiff,” the complaint says.

Straub owes more than $8.3 million in taxes despite not having gaming at the property. Straub would be required to pay $5.1 million if the property was taxed based on its value, according to the suit.

“It’s crazy,” Straub told the Press of Atlantic City. “It’s not a casino, because the state says we need a license. They are penalizing us millions and millions of dollars.”

Straub also has a lawsuit against the state Casino Control Commission, which has ruled he needs a full casino license to re-open gaming at the property. Straub maintains that since he simply wants to lease the space to a casino company, so he does not need full licensing.

In another story centering on a closed Atlantic City casino, the resort’s mayor told the Press that the closed Trump Plaza casino is set to be razed by implosion in the spring.

The casino closed in 2014 and is owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, who took over the former Trump properties through bankruptcy action. Icahn did not comment on the story.

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian said the demolition plan does not include the site’s 2,658 parking space garage. The site would also have to pass city inspections for removal of hazardous materials—such as asbestos—before it could be demolished.

New RTP minimum closer to that of neighboring states

The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Commission has given preliminary approval of a drop of up to 3 percent in the minimum theoretical return-to-player percentage allowed for slot machines at the state’s casinos. According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, a final decision on implementation of the new rule is pending from state officials.

The minimum payback percentage on Maryland slots is currently 87 percent. Casino promoters of the drop in the percentage pointed to neighboring states such as New Jersey, which has an 83 percent minimum RTP, and to Nevada’s 75 percent minimum, in asking the regulators to lower the payout requirement.

The News 4 I-Team, an investigative unit of the Washington, D.C.-area NBC affiliate, reported last week that Maryland’s slots pay out slightly less on average than they did in 2012, and reported that the casinos’ request came amid complaints from gamblers about “tight slots” in D.C.-area casinos such as the MGM National Harbor and Maryland Live.

However, the news team could not verify complaints with data from the state, instead reporting anecdotal complaints from casino customers.

The new rule would not, of course, preclude casinos offering higher payback percentages or staying at current levels. The Sun quoted officials of Hollywood Casino Perryville, for instance, saying current hold strategies will not be affected by the change. “There is an opportunity for additional revenue for the state and the casino,” a spokeswoman said. “We support the change but do not plan to have a specific strategy to change our operation in any way. We have to stay competitive within the state and outside our borders, and customers need to know they can win here as much as at any casino around the area.”

An official of the National Council on Problem Gambling commented to the “The state would keep more money, because there would be more revenue from the slot machines, but there wouldn’t be more money going into the problem gambling fund,” NCPG Executive Director Keith Whyte told the Sun. “Problem gamblers are not very sensitive to payouts.”

Meanwhile, Maryland lawmakers are looking at one other development other than higher hold percentages to boost state gaming revenue. A panel of gaming suppliers headed up by New York-based GameCo, Inc. presented information last week to a joint legislative committee on the addition of new offerings such as skill-based games and eSports.

It was the first meeting of the Maryland Joint Committee on Gaming Oversight since it heard information last year on daily fantasy sports, which is now regulated in the state.

“As Maryland’s casino market matures, each of the six casinos is fine-tuning and adjusting its gaming floor to meet customer trends and demands,” said Carole Bober Gentry, managing director of communications for the Maryland State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, in an interview with the Delmarva Daily Times.

At the committee meeting, Blaine Graboyes, co-founder and CEO of GameCo Inc., said skill-based video games and eSports competition can boost sagging revenues for the casinos. “Slot playing has been stagnant, and skill-based games address these challenges with a differentiated experience on the floor, and will bring in a younger audience,” Graboyes said.