Pennsylvania ‘Jeopardy!’

By the Editorial Board

This activity is the answer to bailing out the failed horse-racing industry. “What is gambling?” Vastly expanding this activity is the means to help the state government recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. “What is gambling?” Allowing far more facilities to host this activity than authorized in the original law is the means to increase state revenue without a direct tax increase. “What is gambling?” Generating more tax revenue from this activity than any other state will help slow the rise of local property tax rates without the trouble of local property tax reform. “What is gambling?” Dedicating all revenue from a major aspect of this activity to free transportation and other benefits for older residents, aka likely voters, makes Pennsylvania the only state to do so. “What is gambling?” This activity increases social dysfunction, including divorce, massive personal debt, theft and suicide. “What is gambling?” Placing machines for this diversion in airports and truck stops will entertain travelers and bring the state some money from out of state. “What is gambling?” Now, Pennsylvania’s government is in the Double Jeopardy round. With the fiscal year closing June 30, the government had anticipated a budget deficit of up to $1 billion even before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the economy and eviscerated state revenue. Given the Legislature’s record, its repeated vast expansions of gambling even when the government did not face crises, it doesn’t require much imagination to see where it might turn to help address a deficit that could reach $5 billion. Already, trade associations representing taverns and video terminal manufacturers have begun pressing state lawmakers to vastly expand gambling yet again by allowing thousands of video gambling machines in bars. A proposal to do so failed in 2017, when the Legislature allowed that type of gambling at truck stops. So the groundwork is laid. The proponents’ pitch is that the expanded gambling will generate another $100 million a year for the state in its first year, and grow to $475 million a year to add to the $1.3 billion that the state already collects from losers at casinos. The true question for lawmakers is not simply the eternal one of where to get more money. It’s whether Pennsylvania has a saturation point at which the downsides of gambling — addiction, societal pathologies and negative impacts on other parts of the economy — finally will overtake lawmakers’ love of easy money.