On Friday, Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment — owner of Parx Casino — became the first Pennsylvania casino to apply for an online gambling license. Within hours they were also joined by Mount Airy and Stadium LLC, a casino that has yet to launch in the state but is still eligible to receive. The
Here we take a look at some of the highlights of Parx’s application to offer online gambling and what it means for the casino.
Parx Casino will offer comprehensive gambling product
In applying for a license before a Monday deadline, the Parx Casino has applied to offer a full suite of online gambling products that includes peer to peer games (poker), table games and slots.
They paid a lot for the license
The comprehensive online gambling license that Parx applied for on Friday is not cheap — it will set the casino back $10 million. With that said, the license is a bargain compared to individual licenses for poker, table games and slots which will be $4 million for each. But in addition to the license fee, Parx and other casinos will be required to pay taxes with rates depending on the product. Controversy has been generated for the steep taxes in some areas, especially for online slots.
Parx Casino is huge in Pennsylvania
In terms of slot revenue in Pennsylvania, the Parx Casino reigns supreme as the largest generator of slot revenue in the state. They are also number two in table game revenue, behind only Sands Bethleham.
No official word on merged player pools
Online gambling in the United States made a significant step forward earlier this summer when Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey — the three states to offer regulated online gambling — merged their player pools. Especially important for online poker, merging player pools is seen as a crucial step to spread the growth of online gambling, especially poker. It is expected that Pennsylvania will join the merged player pool sooner rather than later.
Parx will use GAN as their software provider
With the submission of their application on Friday, Parx confirmed that they would be partnering with GAN to provide software for the online gambling platform. The move did not come as a huge surprise as Parx utilizes GAN for their play money casino.
No reason to anticipate a rejection
Although license applications are subject to approval, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the number one casino in Pennsylvania is not approved for the expensive license application.
There is no time table for launch
Although online gambling took a big step on Friday, especially for Parx Casino, there is no precise time table for when Parx Casino will be approved or launch an online casino or poker room. Pennsylvanians eager to engage in online gambling should take a look at the newly launched Pennsylvania iLottery, with over a dozen games available at the time of this writing.