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$575K spurred slots lobbyists
The lobbying leading up to the bill's July passage produced favorable changes for those seeking to influence the negotiations, with the horse industry in particular benefiting.
The Meadows, a Washington County harness-racing track that paid lobbyists through parent firm MEC Pennsylvania Racing Inc. and Vice President Michael E. Jeannot, will receive one of the first slots licenses.
The law not only assures slots licenses for existing tracks, but establishes a relatively high minimum number of racing days for new tracks and provides millions of dollars for capital improvements on top of the tracks' share of the gambling proceeds. Gambling money also will boost racing purses and horse breeding in the state.
Lobbyist fingerprints are all over the new law, said Thomas W. King III, a lawyer for Beaver County developer Charles Betters, who is suing Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders, alleging they improperly excluded him from competing for a slots license to complement a thoroughbred track in Hays.
"I know what I read; we know what we've heard; and we know what we saw," King said. "We know what the legislation looked like at the end of the day."
Betters and his proposed Pittsburgh Palisades Park also hired lobbyists.
Legalized gambling could potentially benefit others with Western Pennsylvania connections: Harrah's Entertainment of Las Vegas, proposing a Pittsburgh casino with Forest City Enterprises, owner of Station Square, South Side; Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Fayette County; and the Janus-St. George Group Ltd., a Pittsburgh corporation whose president, Charles R. Zappala, wants to invest in a Pittsburgh slots casino.
Additionally, Indianapolis-based Centaur Inc., Bedford Downs Management Group of Lawrence County and Vorum Stables of Washington County are competing for the state's last harness-racing license and proposing to build tracks in Western Pennsylvania.
Senate records show MTR Gaming Group Inc., owner of Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort in Chester, W.Va., on a list of companies represented by lobbyists who reported no expenditures. MTR is building a thoroughbred racetrack in Erie and is assured of getting a slots license for the track.
MTR Gaming could benefit from lobbying that preserved the right for gambling licensees to keep a one-third interest in another license. The company's chief executive, Ted Arneault, is proposing to build a Pittsburgh slots casino with the Penguins.
The state expects slots, once fully up and running, to generate about $3 billion a year, with 33 percent being used to reduce school property taxes, 9 percent earmarked for the horse industry and another 9 percent for public projects and the host municipalities. The rest of the proceeds will go to the tracks and casinos.
The General Assembly legalized as many as 61,000 slot machines at seven racetracks, five stand-alone parlors and two resorts in a 145-page bill that bypassed many of the conventional processes by which legislation is introduced, amended and debated.
The state's existing racetracks also helped persuade legislators to require all tracks with slots to race at least 150 days each year, keeping new tracks from concentrating racing purses among fewer racing days.
Bigger purses attract better horses and more betting, so a track that has to spread its slots revenue over 200 days of horse racing would have been at a competitive disadvantage against a track with just 100 racing days.
More frequent racing also means a better livelihood for trainers, jockeys and others who will operate there.
"At the end of the day, it looks like the tracks were the winners in this thing," King said.
During the three months ended June 30, casinos and slot-machine manufacturers also paid thousands for lobbyists to influence or at least monitor the Pennsylvania debate. Spokesmen for several of the companies said their main interest was in seeing gambling expanded -- and seeing how they might become a part of the state's new industry.
The three-month figure of $575,000 represents only money spent lobbying the Senate. Neither the House of Representatives nor the executive branch require lobbyists to register or report expenditures. The slots law bars future political donations by gambling interests.
Slots lobbying
Gambling interests that paid state Senate lobbyists in the final three months of the legislative debate on slot machine gambling:
(Beaver County developer proposing a thoroughbred racetrack-slots casino in Hays)
(Las Vegas gambling firm proposing slots casino with Forest City Enterprises, owner of Station Square, South Side)
(Indianapolis developer proposing harness racetrack-slots casino in Beaver County)
(Owns and operates The Meadows, a harness racetrack in Washington County that will get a slots license)
(Vice president, MEC)
(Developed by Joseph Hardy, Eighty-Four Lumber Co. founder and Fayette County commissioner)
(Proposing a thoroughbred racetrack in Beaver County)
(Proposing harness racetrack-slots casino in Lawrence County)
(Proposing harness racetrack in Canonsburg, Washington County)
(Pittsburgh corporation; Charles R. Zappala, president, interested in investing in slots casino)
(Sharon, Mercer County manufacturer of auto theft deterrent systems)
Lobbyists represented the following interests in the final months of the gambling debate, but reported no expenditures:
(Owns Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort, Chester, W.Va.; building thoroughbred racetrack in Erie)
Source: Pennsylvania Senate secretary's office
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