Jun 20, 2016 6 min read

A vote on legislation permitting the state’s tavern and bar owners to have video gaming terminals in their establishments, which could come as early as today, is something that sounds like a plan to Joe Pintola.

The owner of Hungry Jose’s bar in Washington, who also is past president of Washington-Greene-Fayette Tavern Owners Association, said most of the membership in the three counties backs the latest measure, one of many attempts over the past two decades.

“Everybody’s all for it,” Pintola said Monday afternoon, adding when Beaver County taverns and bars are added into the mix, the operations account for about 15,000 employees.

Amy Christie, executive director of Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage & Tavern Association, which includes Pintola’s group, said last week the legislation would go a long way toward ending the use of illegal gambling machines in many of the state’s bars and taverns.

“The machines are completely unregulated and the state gets nothing from them” in terms of revenue, she said.

Under the proposed measure, the owner of a licensed establishment would be permitted to install as many as five video gaming terminals, or VGTs. But Christie said owners would be completely removed from the process of handling the wagering or making payouts.

According to Christie, the tavern owner would use a vendor approved by the commonwealth, who would maintain the machines. Winners would receive a computerized ticket stating the amount they won, which they would insert into an on-site terminal.

All of the proceeds from the machines would be wired directly to the state Gaming Control Board in the same way that casino slot machine revenue is transmitted each day.

While acknowledging there are thousands of bars and taverns across the state, Christie said probably only a portion of the total would opt to put machines in their establishments.

“The legislation is geared toward people who already have them” in their businesses, she said.

Christie said the association is willing to concede other parts of the legislation that would permit casinos to offer alcoholic beverages to their playing customers on a 24-hour basis and would permit the inclusion of VGTs at off-track betting parlors, which are operated by casinos.

She also believes taverns and bars with VGTs wouldn’t have much of an impact on the customer base of casinos in their area.

“People are going to come to the casinos because they like the casino atmosphere,” she said.

Last week, during a protest of VGT legislation sponsored by The Meadows Casino and supported by local state legislators, business groups and nonprofits, speakers estimated the legislation could place as many as 85,000 VGTs at as many as 17,000 locations across the state.

Christie said most of the bars and taverns across the state are “mom-and-pop” operations.

“A lot of them are counting on this to enable them to stay open,” she said. “This isn’t going to make people rich.”

Pintola agreed many tavern owners need the gambling component to stay afloat, because of competing businesses – casinos and restaurants – that cut into their profits.

“The casino is a competitor,” he said, adding when he goes to the local state liquor store to pick up his order, he sees the casino’s order, which he said is many times that of his own.

While acknowledging he goes to The Meadows, Pintola said those visits also serve as a reminder he’s in competition with it.

“Every time I go there, I see my customers,” he said.

It’s not just the casinos that are taking a piece of a barkeep’s business, he said, noting restaurant chains with liquor licenses that sponsor happy hours also take away some business, while last week’s approval of wine sales in Pennsylvania supermarkets and beer sales in convenience stores will also “take a slice of the pie” from bars and taverns.

Christie disputed the casino industry’s claim the measure, if enacted, would create as many as 85,000 VGTs across the Keystone State.

She said the association used numbers from Illinois Gaming Bureau (a state where VGTs are in use, with the exception of Chicago) that showed, on a comparative basis, the number of VGTs in Pennsylvania would be about 23,000 spread across roughly 6,000 establishments. That number was used to estimate more than $200 million could be generated for state coffers.

A study conducted for a number of the state’s casinos and released this spring by New Orleans-based Innovation Group estimates VGT development could reach of minimum of 37,000 VGTs and upward of 40,000 machines in Pennsylvania within three years of implementation.

However, the Innovation Group study noted the addition of VGTs here would be the equivalent of adding 18 casinos “but without the same regulatory standards that apply to casinos.”

It noted there is no provision for “self-exclusion,” an option by which people with gambling problems can exclude themselves from entering the state’s casinos.

The current VGT legislation is the latest attempt by bar and tavern owners to legally offer gambling, but the drive for legal gambling in bars and taverns goes back much further.

When the state was debating legalizing casino gambling in the late 1990s, in what would ultimately create Act 71 and tie the state’s horse-racing industry to the casino industry in 2004, the bar and tavern owners joined the legalization effort, and according to Christie, were included in the final bill until the 11th hour, when they were removed “because they were considered ‘nongermane’ to the issue because they were not a casino,” she said.

Others at the time said the tavern and bar owners were excluded because of the difficulties predicted in enforcing gambling at so many venues.

The owners did gain the ability to offer small games of chance in their establishment under separate legislation passed a few years ago, but Christie said the manner in which the law was written discouraged most owners from offering the games.

The initial requirement for a license for games of chance was $2,000, which she said was later lowered.

But most owners opted not to participate because they discovered “it would take five hours a week of accounting” to report the winnings, she said.