When the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board meets today in Harrisburg, it has a big decision to make: Let it ride? Or cash in its chips?
The gaming board is scheduled to decide whether the proposed Foxwoods Casino in Philadelphia gets to keep its gaming license or whether that license will be revoked, a punitive response to years of delays and financial problems. The board
Foxwoods is one of two casinos that was to be built within Philadelphia's city limits. Like the other casino, SugarHouse, and the rest of the stand-alone casinos in the state, Foxwoods won its license in December 2006.
Four years later, stand-alone casinos (that is, casinos that aren't attached to a racetrack or a resort) have been built in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Bethlehem and the Poconos, but the site in South Philadelphia where Foxwoods is supposed to be remains empty.
The gaming board's attorneys, at a hearing last month, recommended the seven-member board revoke the license. "Here's the bottom line. There's a vacant lot on Columbus Boulevard that doesn't have a casino on it," said Dale Miller, the board's deputy chief enforcement counsel, at last month's board meeting, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer account.
But attorneys representing Foxwoods say the project is finally on better financial footing now that it has partnered with known casino commodity Harrah's Entertainment.
The new Harrah's-Foxwoods plan is substantially different than the proposal that the gaming board originally approved, with fewer slots and food and entertainment options.
Casino foes are hoping today's meeting marks the day that Foxwoods is removed from life support. "If the gaming control board actually listened to the people of Philadelphia, they would revoke Foxwoods' license and not re-bid," said Lily Cavanagh, of Casino-Free Philadelphia, which has fought the Foxwoods and SugarHouse projects for four years.
Foxwoods wants an extension until Dec. 31, 2012, and says it can get the casino up and running within 20 months. If the license is revoked, that could open the door for a new gaming entity to build a casino elsewhere in Philadelphia.
Also this week, the gaming board held "suitability" hearings to gather information about the four hotels and resorts competing for the lone remaining "resort casino" license. A resort casino is smaller than a racetrack or stand-alone casino, with just 600 slot machines.
Nemacolin Woodlands Resort is one of the resorts competing for a license, an application that is opposed by The Meadows racetrack and casino, some 50 miles away. Also in the running for that license are the proposed Mason-Dixon resort near Gettysburg, a Holiday Inn west of Harrisburg and a resort in northeast Pennsylvania.
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