The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s first monthly meeting of 2021 adjourned Wednesday with a lack of action in an area that became notable for similar inactivity last year: fines against casinos.
The regulatory agency responsible for overseeing the 13 land-based casinos operating in the state last year, plus additional online-only operators, issued a total of four fines totaling $240,000 in 2020.
That is the lowest number of fines since 2007, when Pennsylvania’s gaming industry was in its infancy and there were far fewer operators.
Many years since then have seen more than two dozen penalties imposed as a result of legal consent agreements with casinos, reaching a high point of 47 fines totaling more than $2 million in 2017. The number of such consent agreements over the past decade also saw a dropoff in 2019, though not as sharp: