Pennsylvania Casino Revenue Should Benefit Education, Not Horse Racing – Poll

A new opinion poll inward Pennsylvania concludes that more than eighter from Decatur inwards 10 residents in the tell believe taxation revenue from gambling casino slot machines shouldn’t follow used to sustenance the gymnastic horse racing industry.

Pennsylvania casinos are subjected to a 54 percent tax on their porcine gaming revenue (GGR) generated by their expansion slot machines. Eleven percent of that money is allocated to the Keystone State Horse Race Development Fund, which is used by the horsemen for rush purses, breeder incentives, drug testing, and regulatory enforcement.

The state’s 15 commercial-grade casinos support Equus caballus racing to the tune up of nearly a billet of a 1000000000 dollars annually. type A young poll finds that a warm legal age of Pennsylvanians want that to end.

Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research says 83 percent of respondents asked near the subsidy answered that the money should follow used “for other purposes.” Only 10 percent said they’d prefer the gambling casino one-armed bandit revenue to continue supporting the horse racing industry. Seven percent said they weren’t sure.

“There is clearly minuscule appetite for taxpayer-funded Equus caballus racing,” said Susan Spicka, executive managing director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania, the statewide non-profit-making that commissioned the poll. “With so many other more urgent needs, it’s firmly to vindicate continuing this program.”

Asked if such gaming money should live used to fund scholarships, 82 percent best-loved such a reallocation. Only 14 percent were inwards opposition.

Loaded Questioning?

Pete Peterson of the PA Equine Coalition says Pennsylvanians need to keep supporting horse racing in the Commonwealth. He claims the Benjamin Franklin & E. G. Marshall public opinion poll was flawed.

I cognize from receive that third-party groups tin pay off Franklin & E. G. Marshall to inquire specific questions in its poll, which I acquire is what happened here,” Peterson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

One instance of a pollard query that could be inferred as loaded by some gymnastic horse racing proponents: “Would you continue to supporting the apply of body politic tax revenues to keep the horse racing manufacture if you learned that near 1,400 horses have got died in the yesteryear 10 years as a resultant of racing-related injuries?”

The interrogation received 51 percent answering “Yes” and 45 percent “No.”

Governor Support

Spica and Education Voters of Keystone State aren’t alone in wanting to airt the expansion slot taxes. Gov. Uncle Tom Friedrich August Wolf (D) said before this twelvemonth it’s clip for the res publica to stop supporting horsemen.

The Democratic governor in his 2d full term wants to use the more or less $250 gazillion the horsemen are expected to find this yr to bread and butter a young college tuition fee programme for students pursing degrees in educational activity and health care.

“Are we going to bet on horses, or are we sledding to play on our kids? I’m sledding to wager on our kids,” Hugo Wolf declared.

Wolf has floated the Nelly Bly Tuition Program as a worthier receiver of slot taxation money. group A Keystone State native, Elizabeth Cochrane Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman — improve known by her Nelly Bly pen figure — was a innovator inwards American journalism and investigative reporting.

The governor’s proposal would ply scholarships to all undergrad students enrolled at the 14 Keystone State State System of Higher Education universities who come in from families with a household income under $104,800. Upon graduation, the scholarship recipient must remain a resident of PA for as many years as they received a financial benefit, otherwise the assignment becomes a low-interest loan.