PA Online Sports Betting

For many years, online gambling and betting have been illegal in the United States and the landscape of iGaming chances in 2013, when the government allowed individual states to oversee and operate online casinos and gambling sites. In October of 2017, Pennsylvania became the fourth state to legalize online gambling. The passing of the new laws allows for the offering of online poker, table games, and slots an there are 12 licenses that are available, one for each of the land-based casinos that are in the state.

How PA Operators Can Get Licensed

First, an online casino must be associated with a land-based casino within PA, so there are just 12 licenses that are available. During the initial 90 days of the licensing period, the applicant was able to apply for a license to cover slots, table games, and poker for $10 million. After 90 days, individual segments were applied for at a cost of $4 million. After 120 days have passed, unclaimed licensed were able to be purchased by entities that are not PA-based casinos for $4 million per segment. All licensed online casinos will have a set tax rate of 14% of the gross gaming revenue on table games and poker and there will be an additional 2% that is used for local share assessments. When it comes to slots, the tax rate is quite hefty, coming in at 52% with the added 2%.

As things stand now, many of the casinos in PA have applied for online gaming licenses and quite a few have been approved. There are currently 5 online casinos that have been approved in the state and six others have applied for licenses. Until now, Pennsylvania has received $108 million in fees for licensed and with remaining licenses available, the opportunity may be given to casinos outside of PA or even outside of the country if PA casinos do not step up and submit their applications.

Even though licenses have been granted, the sites are not up and running yet. Gamblers in PA will most likely have to wait until later in the year to begin playing at these online casino sites.

PASPA Law Struck Down

In May of 2018, the legal landscape for sports betting changed when the US Supreme Court struck down the PASPA law that had placed a limit on sports betting. For the past 25 years, this law limited sports betting to being allowed in just one state, Nevada. The law was recently declared to be unconstitutional and now, it is up to individual states on whether they will allow residents to engage in sports betting action. Visit US Bookies for a detailed overview of the sports betting landscape in the USA.

The law was signed in back in 1993 by President George H.W. Bush to ensure that no state would be able to regulate or tax any form of sports betting. In addition to the licensing fees that have to be paid to apply for a sports betting license, operators will also have to bear the burden of high tax rates, such as the 34% on gross receipts in PA.

In 2017, Pennsylvania legalized sports betting and with the striking down of PASPA, operators within the state of PA are now able to obtain a license and start offering real money sports wagering activities to anyone that is a resident of the state and is of legal age to gamble. This has created a great opportunity for the state to generate revenues from the taxes paid on such wagering and combined with online casinos that will soon open, PA stands to benefit greatly from the money that will be coming in form bets placed at online sites and land-based sportsbooks once they start operating.