HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday night passed sprawling gambling legislation, unveiled just hours earlier, to expand casino-style gambling to the internet, airports, bars and elsewhere in a move that could shape how the state government deals with its deficit-riddled finances this summer.
The bill was marshaled by Republican majority leaders toward the floor vote, a last-ditch move to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from taxes and license fees to help prop up, if temporarily, the state’s threadbare treasury. The bill represents perhaps Pennsylvania’s biggest gambling expansion since it legalized casinos in 2004, a law that made it the nation’s No. 2 commercial casino revenue state.
It passed narrowly, 102-89, less than a year after similar legislation failed in the House. The vote capped years of unsuccessful efforts by some lawmakers to bring legal gambling to bars.
