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One thing that has continued to happen within the US is gambling expansion. Some states have tampered with gambling law to varying degrees of success. They are not willing to eliminate it, even if it doesn’t work, due to the huge potential revenue dollars available. Rather than eliminating it, they are rewriting laws and bills to acclimate better to the market. Few legislators are willing to overlook the financial potential of gambling. Much like the US as a whole, state legislators are trying to come up with a viable law that meets the needs of every party involved. They need a law that legalizes gambling, but also regulates it so that people are still protected. The main argument of anti-gambling lobbyists is that the laws, as they are written now, are not sufficient to protect the public. They believe that inevitably problems will arise as a result of legalizing gambling and the states are not ready to handle the aftermath, that includes an increase in crime, addictions and money laundering.
The state of Pennsylvania is one state that is looking forward in the field of gambling. It has already overcome one big hurdle when in January of this year, slots gambling and table games were legalized in the state. This was great news for casino operators who know how much slots gambling can bring to their revenues in coming months. For example, Rivers Casino is one of the most recently built casinos in the state, but they couldn’t have picked a better time to open their doors. It was just a few months after they did that the state decided to change its laws. The casino even talked to the gaming board, wanting to expand the current laws.

Part of the Rivers Casino’s pitch is that expanded gambling will bring more jobs to the casino. The state has been particularly hard-hit by unemployment and any news regarding building new jobs may be welcomed by legislators. There still has to be a public hearing to settle the details, but most likely the gambling expansion initiative will push ahead. As of now, Pennsylvania is looking to take over the gambling market from Atlantic City and New Jersey.

A casino in Pittsburgh, PA, Rivers Casino, has been fined by the state gaming regulated because two teenagers managed to gamble there for a few minutes each last year.The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board imposed a $16,000 fine on Rivers Casino through a consent agreement between the board and Holdings Acquisition Company, the franchise which owns the casino. The casino was accused of allowing a fifteen year old girl gamble for approximately 17 minutes on October 14, 2009.  Also, they are accused of allowing a fourteen year old boy to play slots for about four minutes on December 13, 2009 before he was apprehended.  No one under the age of eighteen is allowed to be on the casino floor, and no one under the age of 21 is permitted to play slot machines according to state law.

Rivers Casino’s director of business development and community issued the following statement regarding the fines and the casino’s underage gamblers. “Rivers Casino takes this incident very seriously…that’s why we monitor our floors twenty-four, seven and immediately report any occurrence, such as these, to the state.  We’d like to remind parents and guardians that bringing minors onto the gaming floor is strictly prohibited.” Though the casino is trying to clean up the incident with various public relations releases, it may take some time before the community and neighboring states have the confidence restored into the casino. Unfortunately, there is no casino that can bear the brunt of bad publicity now and the unfortunate incident with underage gambling is a big one. Casinos around the nation have the basic rule of no underage gambling and an infringement of that rule can mean a bad reputation for the casino. With the amount of competition among casinos today that means that the Pittsburg Rivers Casino has some catch-up to do in terms of building up its reputation for success. Neighboring casinos are jumping on the problem and advertising their own virtues. It will be difficult for Rivers Casino to rebuild its own reputation for fair gaming and strict rules. It may take a few months for the casino’s promoters to create promotions and advertisements that bring in new customers and help return revenues to what they were pre-incident.