Even more gamblers looking to play craps, poker and other tables games won't need to leave Pennsylvania anymore.
The Mohegan Sun and Mount Airy casinos in northeastern Pennsylvania and the Hollywood Casino outside Harrisburg began offering table games Tuesday, joining three western Pennsylvania
complexes that last week opened the Keystone State's first tables.
Within minutes of the ribbon cutting in Harrisburg, several blackjack tables were filled as Hollywood Casino vice president and general manager Frank Quigley looked on. The casino has 52 table games, including 22 blackjack tables, four craps tables, four roulette tables and a 12-table poker room.
At the Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos, officials Tuesday gave away free T-shirts saying "Let the Games Begin" to the first 3,000 customers. The casino has 72 table games. Owner and managing trustee Lisa DeNaples and her father, Louis DeNaples, cast the ceremonial first die marking the opening.
Mohegan Sun opened with 62 table games after its ceremonial ribbon cutting.
The first slots casinos in Pennsylvania opened in 2006. Last year, Gov. Ed Rendell and top legislators included the legalization of table games as part of a handshake deal to raise more revenue for the recession-battered state treasury. Lawmakers passed the bill in January.
Payment of licensing fees by the state's nine operating casinos and an additional casino expected to open later this year brought in $165 million in June. During the next 12 months, tens of millions of dollars are expected to flow to the state and some local governments from a 16 percent tax on the casinos' take at the tables.
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The casinos expect to hire about 4,400 new employees by the end of the year, a number that includes dealers, pit bosses, cashiers and others needed because of the addition of table games.
Gamblers in the Philly area won't have to wait much longer to play some cards or dice at their local gambling hall. On Sunday table games will come to Harrah's Chester, Parx Casino in Bensalem and the Sands in Bethlehem.
