Mini-casino licence auction postponed in PA
The PGCB postponed the auction of a fifth mini-casino licence due to bad weather conditions.
US.- The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) decided to postpone the auction of a fifth mini-casino license in the state until April 4th in Harrisburg due to the snowstorm that hit the state on Wednesday.
Pennsylvania is trying to auction 10 licences to build mini-casinos in the state. Those facilities can feature up to 750 slot machines and 40 table games. The previous four licences have been sold to facilities in Lawrence, York, Cumberland and Westmoreland. From those transactions the state was able to collect more than US$118 million, and it is expecting a higher amount from the six remaining.
Last January, the PGCB announced the winning of the first casino licence auction, granting the local company – Penn National Gaming – permission to operate a gaming salon near Pennsylvania’s southern border. The first bid to operate the casino was set at US$50 million.
The winner of the second licence – Stadium Casino LLC – bid US$40.1 million to operate a mini-casino which will be located near Derry Township. Meanwhile, the gaming authority granted the third licence to the Mountainview Thoroughbred Racing Association LLC for US$50.1 million, for a mini-casino in the York area.
However, the fourth and so far final bidder – Las Vegas Sands Corp. – has only bid US$9.9 million with a proposed project to build a casino within 15 miles of a location chosen in Hempfield Township in north-western Pennsylvania’s Mercer County. Having successfully won it, financial experts are now waiting for the fifth licence application to study whether new casino licences would be profitable enough for the state.
