PENNSYLVANIA Slot license applicants abound

Applicants range from Trump to Pittsburgh Penguins to Quincy Jones.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Two dozen suitors have applied for the 14 licenses that will be awarded by Pennsylvania to operate slot-machine gambling parlors, state officials said Friday.
The number may not include applications that were mailed before Wednesday's deadline and not yet received by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, but board chairman Tad Decker said it is unlikely any others will arrive.
Decker said he would not confirm the identities of the applicants until at least next week, although 24 entities have independently confirmed they have applied or intended to.
Names on the applications range from the rich and famous to the relatively unknown. Paperwork was submitted by casino giants Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc.; the owners of Planet Hollywood and the Pittsburgh Penguins; celebrities such as Quincy Jones and members of Boyz II Men; and politically connected lawyers and businessmen like former state Supreme Court justice William Lamb and 84 Lumber Co. founder Joseph Hardy.
Five groups
Gambling companies, Indian tribes and developers from Cleveland to Connecticut and Philadelphia to Phoenix entered the stakes.
The 24 applicants can be divided into five groups -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, horse tracks, existing resorts and the licenses that will go elsewhere.
There is little mystery as to who will get some of the licenses.
The state's six licensed racetracks are shoo-ins and only two existing resorts -- Nemacolin Woodlands and Seven Springs, both in western Pennsylvania -- have confirmed that they applied for the two resort licenses.
Elsewhere, there will be competition.
In Pittsburgh, four groups applied for the single license earmarked for that city. Five groups applied for one of two licenses set aside for Philadelphia. Seven groups applied for the two licenses that are not tied down to a specific place.
The licenses allow up to 5,000 slot machines and cost $50 million, except for the resort licenses, which allow up to 500 machines and cost $5 million.
Four dropouts
In the weeks before the deadline, four other parties decided to drop plans to submit applications, including one just hours before Wednesday's midnight deadline.
The Gaming Control Board's downtown Harrisburg offices are now packed with more than 600 boxes of documents that detail the various casino plans and applicants' backgrounds.
"We have to stuff them in ... a lot of the empty and unused offices," board spokesman Nick Hays said.
The deadline for the applications came 18 months after the state approved up to 61,000 slot machines around Pennsylvania, and created the Gaming Control Board to oversee the new industry. Conditional slots licenses for racetracks -- there are seven, but only six tracks have licenses to race so far -- may be issued as early as this summer.
The board has until one year after all the applications are deemed to be complete to issue the rest of the licenses, board officials say.
About one-third of the slots revenue is slated to pay for public education while another 18 percent will go to horse owners and development projects in the cities and towns near the slots parlors.