The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has fined and chastised several gaming operations across the state after identifying violations of different nature, it emerged this week.
The regulator has issued a total of $284,000 in fines to Boyd Gaming, Mountainview Thoroughbred Racing Association, Valley Forge Convention Center Partners, and Sugarhouse Gaming. In addition, the agency has undertaken non-monetary punitive actions against Snow Shoe Travel Plaza and Pit Stop Travel Plaza.
Boyd Gaming was slapped with the largest fine among the above-mention operators that were sanctioned by the Keystone State’s gambling watchdog. The casino operator was hit with a $150,000 fine over its failure to notify PGCB members of all pertinent facts regarding the surrender of a principal’s license in 2020. The company’s failure to provide the necessary information hindered the regulator’s suitability determination, it became known.
Mountainview Thoroughbred Racing, the Penn National Gaming subsidiary that operates Hollywood Casino, was issued a $70,000 fine after an individual, who was on the Gaming Control Board’s self-exclusion list, was able to gain entry to the property’s gaming floor. They were served alcoholic beverages which resulted in intoxication and damage to other patrons’ vehicles parked in the property’s vicinity.
Mountainview Thoroughbred faced a separate $50,000 fine due to incidents that saw two former employees willfully funnel payments to gaming service providers to provide inaccurate disclosures to the regulatory agency and its licensing bureau of lower payment amounts needed to determine the classification of some of the property’s vendors. In other words, those inaccurate disclosures resulted in lower license fees.
More Sanctions
In addition, Valley Forge Convention Center Partners, the organization that operates Valley Forge Casino Resort, received a $14,000 penalty from the state gambling regulator for failing to prevent an underage visitor from accessing its casino floor.
The young gambler was aged 20 and was able to gamble at the venue’s table games.
Rush Street Gaming subsidiary Sugarhouse HSP Gaming, which operates Rivers Casino Philadelphia, was not imposed a fine but was ordered to implement additional security measures and enhance the property’s surveillance after an individual left two children, aged two and four, in a parked vehicle in the gambling venue’s parking lot.
Snow Shoe Travel Plaza and Pit Stop Travel Plaza also avoided a monetary punishment, but were ordered to surrender two video gaming terminal establishment licenses and two principal licenses for failing to adhere to various requirements for holding licenses from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.
Pennsylvania’s licensed gambling operators generated revenue of $413 million in May, up from $404 million in April, according to the latest data from the state Gaming Control Board. Their properties were closed during the same month a year ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The reported May 2021 figure represented a 42% increase from May 2019 when revenue totaled $290.8 million.
Source: Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board issues penalties totalling $284,000, SBC Americas, June 17, 2021
