Pennsylvania Senators Set to Introduce Internet Gambling Bill
It’s the story that we’ve been reporting on for weeks, if not months: Pennsylvania is trying to legalize online gambling. We noted that it had a ton of legal hurdles to vault over. Now, it appears that those hurdles have been vaulted over, and legalized online gambling is on the way. Maybe.
Republican state senators in Pennsylvania are set to introduce legislation to allow Internet gambling. That’s right – after all the drama, we’re about to have the fourth state with legalized online gambling in the United States. The bill was advertised by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and three other Republicans.
What brought it on? Well, online gambling is already legalized in three states. It’s been a little over a full year since it’s been legalized in those three states, and since that time, it’s seen a steady increase. There have been million dollar winners, and the profits made from online gambling alone made up for the losses that land-based casinos in New Jersey experienced.
A large part of the surge in online gambling is thanks to no deposit bonuses. Many sites offer no deposit bonuses as a gift of sorts to new players. Upon signing up, players will receive a certain amount of money in their account, and they’re free to play games on the site with it. Some sites allow you to cash out your winnings made with no deposit bonuses, while others use it as a way to introduce new players to the site. For those sites that do allow the players to cash out the no deposit bonus, they must play certain games and hit a certain percentage. Once that minimum requirement is met, they’re free to withdraw that money.
The money used from Internet gambling has been used in all sorts of ways for the states that offer legalized Internet gambling. The money generated has been used for public projects, schools, and more. Internet gambling has done nothing but help states that have legalized it, and Pennsylvania has noticed that and wants in on the action.
For Pennsylvania, it means relief for the state treasury. The bill promises “hundreds of millions of dollars” for the state treasury, as well as other provisions that will allow casinos to expand beyond their traditional gambling offerings – perhaps, even, working in partnership with Internet sites that offer no deposit bonuses.
There’s opposition to the bill, of course. Governor Tom Wolf says that the Democrats are open to discussing the idea of legalized Internet gambling, but in no way is legalized Internet gambling a replacement for his plan to raise taxed in an effort to close the projected large budget deficit.
Pennsylvania is closer than ever to legalizing Internet gambling, and we think that Tom Wolf realizes that it’d only help the state, not hurt it. Pennsylvania residents, get ready!