1. GAMING TAX RATE Pennsylvania imposes a 34 percent tax on the gross revenues collected from slot machines. On top of this, the state has placed an additional tax of up to 12 percent for the Pennsylvania Race Horse Improvement Assessment, a 5 percent tax that will go to the Pennsylvania Gaming and Economic Development and Tourism Fund, and, finally, a 4 percent tax or $10m, whichever is greater.
2. (c) Credit against tax for slot machine licensees.-If the rate of the tax imposed by section 1403 (relating to establishment of State Gaming Fund and net slot machine revenue distribution) is increased at any time during the term of ten years following the initial issuance of the slot machine license, the slot machine licensee shall be entitled to a credit against subsequent payment of the.
3. Sands Bethworks involved a tax on slot machine revenues. Pennsylvania levies a variety of taxes on these revenues: There is a 34% base tax that is payable to the State Gaming Fund.
4. Pennsylvania Slot Machine Revenue Up 2.7% in May HARRISBURG, Pa., June 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board posted on its web site the monthly report for total gross.

Slot machine revenue was up in 9 of the 12 months during the most recent fiscal year totaling $2,378,859,341 or $26.5 million higher than the $2,352,320,937 generated during the 2017/2018 fiscal year. Tax revenue produced by slot machine play during the 2018/2019 fiscal year totaled $1,237,085,077.

Casino revenue fell significantly last year in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, not a surprise considering the prolonged closure of gaming properties due to the pandemic. But the impact on tax revenues in the two states could not be more different.

In Pennsylvania, state and local government collected $317 million less in tax revenue from gambling, down 22%, according to data released Tuesday by the state. But in New Jersey state tax revenue actually increased slightly over 2019, even though total gaming revenue was down 17% due to casino closures.

New Jersey’s total tax revenue, $302.7 million, was up about $2.3 million over the previous year thanks largely to a huge shift of gaming to online platforms. New Jersey taxes internet bets at a higher rate than bets wagered in a casino.

In New Jersey, where online casino and poker games launched in 2013 and online sports betting in 2018, wagering on the internet largely kept the state treasury whole. In Pennsylvania, online gaming started more recently, and largely saved the gaming industry from bigger losses.

“Without the increase in online revenue, there is no telling how much weaker a position the entire industry would be in right now,” Dustin Gouker, lead analyst for PlayPennsylvania.com, said in a statement Tuesday.

Legal gambling operators in Pennsylvania collected about $2.7 billion in winnings from bettors last year, down from $3.4 billion in 2019, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. In New Jersey, revenue totaled $2.9 billion last year, compared to $3.5 billion the previous year, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Though the two states reported comparable winnings from casinos and online gaming platforms, Pennsylvania generates far more tax revenue from the industry because of its higher tax rates. Pennsylvania, which collected $1.1 billion in taxes last year compared to $1.4 billion in 2019, assesses a tax rate on slot machines at most casinos at about 52%, which includes 34% state tax, 2% local share assessment, 6% for the Economic Development Trust Fund, and about 10% for the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development Fund.

New Jersey taxes revenue from casino table games and slots at 8%, but internet games at 15%. So even though revenue from Atlantic City casino games declined by $1.2 billion last year, or 44%, internet gaming revenue doubled to $970 million, and generated more tax revenue for the state than casino games. The net result for the state treasury in Trenton was no change in tax revenue.

The 12 Pennsylvania casinos were closed about a third of the year to comply with lockdown restrictions, and suffered from lower traffic when they reopened. Slot machine revenue, the big money-earner, was off 43% last year and table games revenue was down 44%.

Rivers Casino Philadelphia was closed for 165 days last year, the longest outage of any of the state’s casinos because Philadelphia imposed a stricter lockdown on businesses during the pandemic. Its slot machine revenue was down 55% and table games revenue was down 49% last year.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Top Republicans in Pennsylvania’s state Senate are pressing sweeping gambling legislation that would allow slot machine-like terminals in thousands of bars, restaurants, nonprofit social clubs and other businesses that hold liquor licenses.

The legislation could deliver new gambling tax dollars to a state treasury hurting from stay-at-home and shutdown orders issued by Gov. Tom Wolf to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

It also seeks to banish thousands of unregulated cash-paying “skill” game terminals from a wide array of establishments in Pennsylvania, including laundromats, pizza parlors, grocery stores, corner stores and bowling alleys, that do not have liquor licenses.

No Senate vote had been scheduled as of Tuesday as Senate Republican leaders worked to build enough support for it to pass. The bill is opposed by two erstwhile adversaries: casino owners in the nation’s No. 2 commercial casino state and Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, maker of the software in most common skill terminals, marketed as Pennsylvania Skill games.

Wolf, a Democrat, is taking a dim view of it, warning in a statement from his office that state programs already fed by a “multitude” of legal gambling options, from slot machines in casinos to online lottery games, could lose dollars. He opposes the bill in its current form, his office said Tuesday.

Under a draft amendment, more than 10,000 bars, restaurants, hotels, golf course clubhouses and nonprofit social clubs with liquor licenses could install the so-called video gaming terminals, or VGTs. Counties that host casinos and municipalities could still vote to keep the machines out.

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, framed the bill not necessarily as an expansion of gambling, but as a way to get forms of unregulated gambling under control.

“The overall goal is to bring into the light the tens of thousands of unregulated games of skill and VGT devices that are out there in Pennsylvania today,” Corman said Tuesday.

Senate Republican budget analysts projected that taxing the VGTs could yield $200 million to $250 million a year, Corman said.

A major trade association for bars and restaurants, the Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association, is asking its members to contact senators to support it.

The bill comes as distributors of VGTs — including executives from Golden Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas — and Pennsylvania Skill games are giving tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to lawmakers and political organizations.

A political action committee backed by a Williamsport-based coin-op machine distributor, Miele Manufacturing, which assembles Pennsylvania Skill games, has given more than $100,000 to lawmakers and political committees going back to last year.

Wolf, at least, might be sympathetic to banishing the skill games: His administration has accused the proliferating skill machines of siphoning more than $200 million in revenue last year from the Pennsylvania Lottery.

Pa Slot Machine Tax Software

While the bill might leave legal room for Pace-O-Matic games in licensed-liquor establishments, the company sees it as a death knell.

“We can’t compete with them,” spokesman Michael Barley said. “Their games are flashier, more appealing. They look like things you would find in a brick-and-mortar casino. … Our games are slower, more methodical.”

Pa Slot Machine Tax Collectors

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