A new grand jury report has some scathing findings against the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the governing body charged with regulating the state’s gambling industry.
The 102-page report of the 31st Statewide Grand Jury concentrates almost entirely on 2004 to 2007 and criticized state investigations of gaming license applications, political interference in GCB operations, the heavy influence of special interest groups and lobbyists in creating the state gambling laws, and the political atmosphere at the regulatory agency.
As the Daily Local reports, Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board Chairman Greg Fajt dismissed the report as “old news” and “a waste of taxpayer time and money.” Fajt said his office spent more than 4,000 staff hours and produced 2.7 million pages of documents to comply with the demands of Corbett’s office’s requests for the grand jury during the past two years.
“After this grand jury met for more than two years, there were no arrests, no presentments, no indictments. They found no criminal activity, because there was, in fact, no criminal activity to be found,” said Fajt.
This saga will likely have a little more twists and turns before it is fully ironed out. But surely the state has a little extra money to spare considering the tax rate it is imposing on Pennsylvania gambling.
