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Legislation

US – Pennsylvania’s Gaming Board bans online from gaming floors

By - 1 March 2018

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will ban online casino games and online poker being offered at all land-based casinos in the state.

A high tax rate of 52 per cent was placed on online slot machine games with 34 per cent going to the Property Tax Relief Fund, 13 per cent to the Commonwealth Finance Agency (CFA) for grants to any county and five per cent to be distributed to counties which suffered a decrease in local share assessment funds from slots compared to last year. Additionally, from all types of internet gaming, there is a local share tax of one per cent to the license holder’s host county. Table games will be taxed at 14 per cent which will go to the Pennsylvania General Fund.

The Gaming Board said: “Existing casino license holders may request the Board for authorisation to offer internet gaming. The Gaming Control Board will put in place a system that, through the use of GPS software and IP Address identification, will block entry and play of Pennsylvania-licensed internet gaming if a user is outside of the state. In addition, participating in internet gaming when in a Pennsylvania casino will also be blocked. Specific rules for each game will be submitted by the licensee for review and approval by the Gaming Control Board at a later date. Players should expect that the rules of play for internet gaming will be similar to the rules of play in the land based casinos.”

It added that the Gaming Control Board was in the first phases of a rollout of internet gaming and had no targeted launch date yet.

Pennsylvania confirmed it would become the fourth state in the US to legalise online gaming when Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill last year.

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