The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board Approves Over $90,000 In Casino Fines

HARRISBURG, PA: The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board today approved seven consent agreements involving three casinos with fines totaling $91,161.

The fines were the result of the approval of consent agreements between the PGCB’s Office of Enforcement Counsel and:

Chester Downs and Marina, LLC, operator of the Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino in Delaware County;
Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment, Inc., operator of Parx Casino in Bucks County; and,
IOC-Pa, LLC, operator of the Lady Luck Casino Nemacolin in Fayette County.

Five of the consent agreements involved Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino with fines totaling $75,000. These include:

$25,000 for using gaming chips that had not been approved prior to use at its Roulette tables along with not properly storing and providing proper inventory of Roulette chips.
$20,000 for several incidents in which casino personnel violated PGCB regulations and Harrah’s internal controls in conducting table games.
$12,500 for permitting a 19-year-old to gain access to the gaming floor and gamble on a slot machine. Pennsylvania law requires a patron to be 21 years of age to access the gaming floor and wager on slot machines or table games. Additionally, the 19-year-old was served an alcoholic beverage in the facility.
$10,000 for permitting a person on the PGCB’s Self-Exclusion List to enter and gamble at the casino on two separate occasions. Regulations for the Self-Exclusion Program state that a casino must refuse wagers from and deny any gaming privileges to a person on the list.
$7,500 for failure to follow an approved prize structure for a Blackjack tournament held in June 2014.

Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment was assessed a $15,000 fine for using gaming chips that had not been approved prior to use at its Roulette tables at the Parx Casino. The PGCB investigation found that there are no indications that patrons were harmed or assets compromised as a result of this violation.

Finally, IOC-Pa, LLC was fined $1,161 for allowing cash advances from ATMs located on the gaming floor at its Lady Luck Casino Nemacolin during an approximate 10 month period. Under the Gaming Act, no credit card advance machine may be placed on the gaming floor. The fine represented the amount of fees netted by the casino for the improper cash advances. This was the first fine levied against this operator since its opening in 2013.

The next meeting of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is scheduled for 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, February 25, 2015 in the PGCB’s Public Hearing Room located on the second floor of Strawberry Square in Harrisburg.

About the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board:

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board was established in 2004 and is tasked to oversee all aspects of the state’s casino industry. There are 10 stand-alone and racetrack casinos in operation, along with the two resort casinos. These facilities collectively employ over 17,700 people and generate an average of $3.7 million per day in tax revenue from slot machine and table games play. The largest portion of that money is used for property tax reduction to all Pennsylvania homeowners with additional tax revenue going to the horse racing industry, economic development projects, fire companies, county fairs, water and sewer projects, the Commonwealth’s General Fund, and to local governments that host casinos.

Additional information about both the PGCB’s regulatory efforts and Pennsylvania’s gaming industry can be found at www.gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov. You can also follow the agency on Twitter by choosing @PAGamingControl.

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