Poker players in Pennsylvania have cause to celebrate today, as state lawmakers recently passed a new bill allowing table games- including poker- not only in all of the state's current casinos, but in all future planned casinos as well.

The new bill, considered a given since October when revenues from it were included in the state budget, was passed by the House and Senate earlier this week and signed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell today, averting- at least temporarily- what could have amounted to 1,000 state worker layoffs due to the state's crippling budget deficit.

Pennsylvania's largest casinos will now be allowed up to 250 table games in exchange for a $16.5 million licensing fee, with smaller, resort style casinos only paying $7.5 million for up to 50 tables of their own. 

Along with poker, the new law also allows for blackjack, craps, baccarat and roulette.

These new table games, which will most likely take more than six months to begin showing up in the state's nine preexisting casinos, will be taxed at 16 percent gross revenue during the first two years of operation, with the taxes lowering to 14 percent thereafter.  Two percent of those taxes will go directly to the counties and municipalities that house the casinos.
 

Story by Mark Anderson