Philadelphia is saddened by the news that they might not get a second casino. The state House approved the bill that was brought forward by Rep. Curt Schroder, R-Chester in order to allow one of the two new casino licenses that were once guaranteed for Philadelphia to be auctioned to the highest bidder and they can be located anywhere within the state. Under the law that was made in 2004, Pennsylvania will have 14 casinos, five stand-alone casinos, seven racetrack and casinos, and two resort casinos. Philadelphia was going to just get the two stand-alone casinos, but only currently just has one named the Sugarhouse.
The developers of the second stand-alone new casino, which they wanted to call Foxwoods, never was able to obtain the necessary funding in order to build it and finally at the last possible minute had the license for the casino revoked by the state gaming officials. Some of the legislators think that these four casinos that are now standing throughout Philadelphia and the suburbs surrounding the city are quite enough. They are arguing that putting in this second stand-alone casino in the city—which makes five total for the entire city – would be too much.
In other areas throughout the state, they would like the chance to bid on this now-available and ready to go casino license that Foxwoods once held. Sen. John Wozniak, D-Cambria, has had a voice in the matter about putting a new casino near the Johnstown area. There are others however, that want to put a new casino near the Gettysburg area within the state. The bill that allows the license to be auctioned off from Philadelphia is now moving to the Senate. It might not even pass through there, because of some of the Republican leaders are talking about just eliminating the license for the new casino all together. This will give the entire state 13 different casinos, instead of their anticipated and promised 14.
This will prove to be a long process, but there are people on each side of the fence: some want the extra casino to go up somewhere else in the state, while others argue that 13 casinos are enough. They do not want to put too many casinos through the state since this might cause a lot of corruption and uprooting for a lot of the residents that live around the new casinos. It will definitely be a process that they will have to go through, but time will only tell what Senate will do with the license once it is passed through them.
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