Rivers Casino Wins Right to Offer Casino Table Games
The Gaming Control Board of Pennsylvania has finally given the go signal to the Rivers Casino to offer eighty six casino table games in their North Shore establishment. The table games application calls for the games to be offered into two rooms. One room will offer twenty-four "non-bank" Poker Games. Those are casino tables where players compete with one another and not with the casino facility.
The other sixty-two tables will offer "bank card games". Todd Moyer, Rivers Casino Manager, said on May 26th, 2010 that they will offer forty-two blackjack tables, three 3-card poker tables, three Texas Holdem bonus tables, 2 Pai Gow poker tables and 2 mini-baccarat tables.
The facility will also offer well-known casino table games like craps and roulette, two casino games which can only be played previously in the casino facilities in Nevada and New Jersey, particularly in Las Vegas Strip and Atlantic City. Craps and Roulette are not allowed in Pennsylvania before state legislators approved the casino table games bill in January 2010.
Rivers Casino's application to Pennsylvania states that the addition of casino table games will create 309 new full-time and 149 part-time employment opportunities. Moyer said that they have already hired most of the casino table games dealer and they are in the process of training them. He said that he expects to hire additional security personnel and food service crew soon.
The same application promised Pennsylvania officials that revenues from slot machines will not drop with the addition of casino table games. Moyer said that he thinks that the market for slot machine gamers is different from the market for casino table games players. Tax revenues from the casino table games are divided between Pennsylvania's general fund and local taxing groups.
Tax dollars from slot machines are divided among local municipalities, counties and property tax relief. Rivers Casino currently offers three thousand slot machines and Moyer said that will not change.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board also approved the casino table games application of the Sugarhouse Casino in Philadelphia. It means that all approvals for the ten slots facilities in Pennsylvania to offer casino table games are already in place. The state will permit the table games to open by area throughout the month of July 2010.
David M. Bedingfield
Published on: 2010-07-25
