Lawrence County to get long-sought casino
The third license for a Pennsylvania Category 4 mini-casino was awarded to Mount Airy Casino Resort for a bid of $21.18 million. Mount Airy, the licensee currently operating a casino in the Pocono Mountains resort region in the eastern part of the state, pegged its Category 4 bid for New Castle, Lawrence County, in the western part of the state around 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.
The Category 4 license, created by the massive gaming expansion law signed in November by Governor Tom Wolf, authorizes a mini-casino with a maximum of 750 slot machines and, for an extra $2.5 million license fee, up to 30 table games. Mount Airy’s winning bid of $21.2 million was the lowest so far. Although the minimum bid is only $7.5 million, Penn National Gaming won the first Category 4 license for York County with a bid of $50.1 million, and Stadium Casino LLC won the bid for a casino near Greensburg, Westmoreland County, for $40.1 million.
Casinos can be located anywhere within a 15-mile radius of the bid location. In Mount Airy’s case, the location of New Castle is significant in itself as Lawrence County has sought a casino for around 14 years. Originally granted a Category 1 racino license, a project known for most of its life as Lawrence Downs went through several owners, none of which was able to arrange financing, before the state Gaming Control Board rescinded the license, which has yet to be re-bid.
County officials were delighted with the choice. “Lawrence County is surrounded by five counties,” County Commissioner Dan Vogler said in an interview with CBS Pittsburgh. “Three in Pennsylvania—Mercer, Butler, Beaver—and two in Ohio, Mahoning and Trumbull. When you take those five counties’ populations and add Lawrence, you’ve got a million people.
“I’m hoping we an see a replication of what we’re seeing in Washington County with the Meadows,” he added, referring to the creation of several new housing developments surrounding that casino south of Pittsburgh. “There’s been a lot of growth around the Meadows.”
The award is the third of 10 mini-casino licenses to be bid in auctions being held every two weeks through mid-May. Current licensees such as Mount Airy get first crack at the new licenses, which cannot be located within 25 miles of a current casino. Any licenses going without bids will eventually be offered to outside operators.
The license won by Penn National for the first mini-casino was seen as a defensive move by the operator, which filed a lawsuit to block the satellite casino provision on the basis it put Penn’s Hollywood Casino outside Harrisburg in an unfair competitive position. Last week, Wolf asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
According to a report on the Penn Live website, the governor joined with the Gaming Control Board to ask U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane to throw out Penn’s lawsuit, which contends the expansion provision is unfair because most of Hollywood’s customers come from outside the 25-mile radius specified by the law. In a motion before the court, Wolf and the gaming board said Penn’s casino is in no more of an unfair competitive position than others, particularly those near state borders.
“Hollywood Casino’s 25-mile protective zone in all directions is more than a casino like Presque Isle or the Meadows receives due to competition in neighboring states,” the motion said, adding that Hollywood “cannot demonstrate that it was intentionally treated differently than other casinos” by the Category 4 provision.
As the auctions for Category 4 licenses proceed rapidly, other elements of the massive Pennsylvania expansion law face much more uncertainty. Applications have been available since the beginning of the month for licenses to operate online gaming and for video gaming terminals to be placed at truck stops, but there has been no news from the gaming board on any bidders for those licenses.
The 60-page applications for iGaming licenses will be available until April 2, when the board will officially accept them, and applications for VGTs at truck stops will be collected May 7. However, there are few other details available from the gaming board. “We will continue to provide updates on the next steps for all the various gaming expansion initiatives,” Gaming Control Board spokesman Douglas Harbach said in a statement published by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
