Spin Cycle: Pennsylvania’s Pending Skill Bill Highlights Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

Pressure makes diamonds, Diamond applies pressure

With an Oct. 13 deadline looming to regulate so-called “skill games” or see them become illegal in Pennsylvania, state Rep. Russ Diamond stepped forward Tuesday to announce he’ll soon be introducing legislation to regulate and tax the controversial gambling machines.

“Pennsylvania’s gaming law was originally written for a much different era,” Diamond said in a statement posted on the website of the Pennsylvania House Republican caucus. “It’s time to modernize our approach, bring skill games into a regulated system ahead of the state Supreme Court’s October 13th deadline, and make sure Pennsylvania homeowners see a greater benefit from the revenue generated by gaming.”

Diamond’s legislation, which had not been formally introduced as of our press deadline Friday, would see skill games taxed at 20% of revenue — far below Pennsylvania’s 52% tax rate on slot machines. In the slightest of concessions on that front, the new bill proposes to reduce the online and land-based slot machine tax rate to 49.9%.

Diamond says the skill game taxes should go primarily toward tax relief, with the release projecting “every qualified homeowner in Pennsylvania would receive a gaming dividend payment of at least $702 yearly.”

In separate news regarding skill games and state lawmakers, Georgia state Sen. Bill Cowsert said this week, as reported by CDC Gaming, that his state’s tax rate of 13% for skill games is too low and it should be more in the neighborhood of 30%. While Georgia does not have legal casinos or online gaming like Pennsylvania does, it does regulate lottery play, and Cowsert believes the “coin-operated amusement machines” are cannibalizing lottery revenue.

More news to know …

• SBC announced last Friday the five individuals who will be inducted into the SBC Hall of Fame at the SBC Leaders Summit on Sept. 28, with DraftKings CEO Jason Robins the headline name among the five honorees. Also gaining induction in the Class of 2026: Khalid Ali, CEO of the International Betting Integrity Association; Karen Marcela Sierra-Hughes, Gaming Laboratories International vice president of Latin America, Caribbean & Spain; David Natroshvili, founder of Spribe; and Mor Weizer, CEO of Playtech.
• The largest pot in the history of the long-running cash-game show High Stakes Poker went down this week, as Eric Wasserson and “Texas Mike” Moncek battled for $4.26 million — and it wasn’t a case of two monster hands clashing in a “cooler” situation. Rather, Wasserman held a pair and a flush draw after both the flop and turn, Moncek bluffed on both streets with no pair and no draw, Wasserman made his flush (but only the fourth best possible flush) on the river, and Moncek fired one more all-in bluff for about $1.6 million to a pot of a little over $1 million. After about two minutes of contemplation, Wasserman made the call and set an HSP record.

• As reported Tuesday by The Seattle Times, two more cardrooms in the state of Washington are closing in the wake of Maverick Gaming’s 2025 bankruptcy filing. With an expected closure date of Nov. 1, both Great American Casino and Riverside Casino will be shuttering, resulting in a combined 238 employee layoffs. Maverick had already closed four other cardrooms in the state in the past year.
• In decidedly more upbeat news, an online slots customer of Hollywood Casino in Pennsylvania scored the digital casino’s biggest jackpot ever in the early hours of Sunday morning, turning a $5.10 spin on Rome Fight for Gold: The Tiger’s Rage into $4,365,327. The player had opted in to the site’s DropZone Jackpots program for the extra 10 cents on what otherwise would have been a $5 spin — certainly the best dime they ever spent.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

Over 1,300 Encore Boston Harbor Workers Ready To Strike

Fanatics Confident As It Soft Launches Casino In ‘Very Competitive’ Ontario Market

Bill Simmons Admits To Proxy Betting

New Underdog Trading Card Offer Blurs The Lines Of Gambling

Lottery And NFL: Where Kickoffs Meet Scratch-Offs

Resorts World NYC Table Games Gathered Steam Over Course Of Summer

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, presented in partnership with DraftKings Casino, I welcomed Mike Cuneo, the founder of SweepsGuard, to discuss why he started the watchdog site; the success rate pursuing claims against sweepstakes operators; the cases for and against sweepstakes gaming; and more.

I also reacted to the major news of New Jersey petitioning the Supreme Court to take up the prediction market case and, with one week to go before the NFL season kicks off, I squeezed in some last-minute fantasy football talk.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

Shapiro Administration Launches New Problem Gambling Program [Your Erie]

Trainer Suspended After Horses In Betting Probe Test Positive [ESPN]

Bally’s CFO Resigns Amid Liquidity Issues, VGT Dispute And Chicago Construction Slowdown [Chicago Tribune]

‘Last-Ditch’ Lawsuit Hopes To Stop Madera Mega-Casino Planned To Open In October [The Fresno Bee]

Strip Casino Debuts Revamped High-Limit Slots Lounge [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

FIU Joins In On Jersey Patch Trend, Teams Up With Casino Company [Caplin News]

Light & Wonder Exuding Confidence, Analyst Says [CDC Gaming]

Oxford Casino Owners Say They Are Considering Selling The Property [Sun Journal]

Yaamava’ To Host ‘Deal Or No Deal Live’ With Five $1M Games [Indian Gaming]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with a few of our favorite social media posts of the week: