It’s been the talk of the town in recent weeks – Pennsylvania is almost ready to begin accepting applications for legal online gambling within the State. Only recently we reported on additional regulations being approved by Pennsylvania, and things seem to moving along nicely towards online casinos and poker rooms being accepted. However, many people are quite curious as to how things will proceed once the applications become readily available for online licences.
In total, Pennsylvania will be providing 39 gambling licences for various sections relating to the online poker industry, as well as the casino gaming world. It’s most likely that not all of these licences will be claimed though, with a variety of different reasons behind this possible outcome. Therefore, it leaves various questions about such – for example, what happens with the left-over licences? Who will most likely snap up one of the licences for themselves? And many more.
Of course, these are not questions that can be answered in an instant and for the time being, one person’s guess is just as good as the next. However, there’s quite a lot of information available about what the casinos within Pennsylvania are planning. But, why is it thought that not all of the gambling licences available in the State will be claimed?
More Details on Pennsylvania’s Licence Applications
It’s believed that while 39 gambling licences will be up for grabs once Pennsylvania begins accepting applications, they won’t all be claimed due to the cost of them primarily. At the start of the application process, a current land-based casino within the state will be able to apply for an online gambling licence too. To begin with, these casinos are only able to apply for what will be known as “full licences”, which take place over 90 days. This means that they will offer all types of gaming in the online world, which are poker, slots and table games.
The full licences actually have a price of $10 million and there will be 13 of these available to Pennsylvania’s brick-and-mortar establishments. Naturally, $10 million is a huge amount to pay, so the cost stands as one of the reasons why it’s quite likely not all of them will be taken. Furthermore, online slot platforms are taxed at 54%, which could also halt a casino from taking an online licence. And to add to this, online poker isn’t quite as popular for the time being, especially considering how New Jersey’s own market for such has been fairly underwhelming.
Following the initial 90-day period, casinos simply get to choose if they want to continue offering all three types of games, or if they want to reduce down to one or two. These game genres cost $4 million each. Because of the high tax rates coming from slot games and the possibility of a lacklustre poker room, many casinos might choose to solely provide table games. Alternatively, poker and table games might be scrapped solely for a single licence to provide the popular slots.
That being said, it’s still possible that a decent amount of the online licences will be claimed. There’s even talk that certain casinos may opt to claim a licence just so another platform can’t take it, for future purposes. Naturally, while costs for these licences may seem extortionate for the market at the moment, things could change in the future.
Whatever the case may be, Pennsylvania is looking at a future of providing online poker and gaming to its citizens, and applications are to begin being accepted very soon.
