Diamond urges House leaders not to allow skill games deadline to pass without a solution

A state lawmaker sponsoring two bills that he said would save skill games while providing new revenue for tax relief and more blamed Democratic House leaders Monday for inaction on the topic.

At the start of the General Assembly’s last session week before midterm elections, Rep. Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon) said he offered to work with Democrats to amend his legislation to also provide additional funding for public transportation agencies.

“But their leadership’s stubborn insistence that any action on skill games must originate in the Senate … stands in the way,” Diamond said at a state Capitol news conference with business owners who rely on the income skill games generate.

Elizabeth Rementer, a spokesperson for House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery), noted Senate Republicans pushed to take the lead on skill games, but have been unable to pass their own members’ bills.

“House Democrats stand willing and eager to come to a reasonable resolution to the skill game issue that would both bring in new revenue and ensure a safe and equitable skill games framework,” she said. “But first Senate Republicans must prove their ability to pass something.”

Rep. Diamond proposes gaming reform to save skill games and boost tax relief

Skill games resemble casino slot machines but they can be found throughout the commonwealth in small businesses, private clubs and volunteer fire companies instead of casinos. Until this year, state courts had ruled they were distinct from gambling devices because they incorporated an element of skill by which players could recoup their bets.

But the state Supreme Court ruled in June that skill games are, in fact, gambling devices that are illegal to own and operate without a license from the state Gaming Control Board. The decision ended more than a decade in which skill games proliferated in a legal gray area without state oversight or taxation.

Recognizing the potential for its ruling to upend a segment of the commonwealth’s economy, the Supreme Court delayed the effect of its ruling until Oct. 13. On that date, state law enforcement agencies warn, all skill game machines must be removed from unlicensed establishments.

George Lewis, co-owner of Atlantis ATM in Allentown, supplies skill games along with jukeboxes, pool tables and other coin-operated amusements. He said the share of revenue from skill games that host establishments collect saved many nonprofit organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic, after they were forced to close. 

Now, many rely on the cash they make from skill games to pay for building repairs and replace equipment. Many also make donations to pay for children’s gifts at Christmas time and other charitable endeavors.

But Lewis said he was wary of the uncertain status the skill games industry held. 

“When we first started doing the skill games. I didn’t think it was going to last, and I actually told all my customers. I said, ‘Listen, this is just extra money. Take it now … but don’t depend on it,” he said.

Like his customers, Lewis said he now relies on the revenue skill games produce.

“I hired more employees, you know, getting more vehicles, insurance. I had to depend on that money more myself,” he said.”Our jukeboxes and our ATMs, we can live off of it. But in order to flourish and then help all of our employees … we had to depend on the money.”

While lawmakers have been working since before the ruling to reach consensus on a taxing and regulatory scheme for the devices, none of the proposals have passed both chambers of the General Assembly to move on to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk. Shapiro has indicated support for a plan to tax the games by including revenue in his last two budget proposals. 

House Gaming Oversight Committee Chairperson Patrick Harkins (D-Erie) said last week lawmakers in the lower chamber have been working to formulate a proposal while pressuring Senate Republicans to secure the votes they need to pass a measure.

“I turn it back to the Senate Republican leadership, who has told us for four years that they have no intention and they have no ability to get the votes for anything at this point in time. It’s difficult to negotiate by ourselves,” Harkins said during a Gaming Oversight Committee meeting.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, meanwhile, told reporters at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon last month that “various stakeholders” had rejected “in no uncertain terms” a Senate proposal to place skill games under the auspices of the Gaming Control Board.

Diamond said Monday that the General Assembly should stop at nothing to get the job done.

“The people of Pennsylvania elected all of us with an expectation that we’d actually get things done,” noting the Pennsylvania legislature is supposed to be full-time but has been in voting session only about three dozen times this year. “We spent those days unwilling to tackle the big issues.” 

He urged House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) keep the chamber in session as long as necessary to develop a solid bipartisan solution, adding that passing his proposals would accomplish that. 

The alternative could have broad electoral repercussions, warned Diamond, who began his political career with a campaign to unseat state lawmakers who voted to give themselves a middle-of-the-night pay raise in 2005.

“That money is going to go away, and I don’t think anybody in this Capitol actually understands what happens when you take money out of people’s mouths,” he said. “I think it’s dangerous. I’ve been around when people in Pennsylvania get mad at the entire General Assembly, and it’s not pretty.”