Editorial: Harrisburg ethics shouldn't be a game of chance -- or skill

Should Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board officials meet privately with casino lobbyists?

That’s a good question.

State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming County, and state Rep. Jared Solomon, D-Philadelphia, showed a rare moment of bipartisan and bicameral agreement when they asked the Office of the Attorney General and the state Ethics Commission to take a closer look at the board’s actions.

The request followed a Spotlight PA story that highlighted the private meetings between lobbyists for Parx Casino in Bucks County to sway the board’s position on skill games. This set up a kind of power struggle between the casino lobbyists and Pace-O-Matic, a company that creates skill games software.

Skill games, which look kind of like slot machines but aren’t, really, have existed in a limbo. Lawmakers haven’t written regulations about how to deal with them, leaving the issue in the hands of the Gaming Control Board. The board didn’t do anything since there weren’t laws in place to follow.

Spotlight’s reporting showed a January 2020 meeting took place quietly with Parx representatives and Gaming Control Board Executive Director Kevin O’Toole and Doug Sherman, who was then the board’s chief counsel. Shortly thereafter, the board took a position on the issue, joining the casinos in claiming the machines were illegal.

That’s a perfectly acceptable position for the board to take. It’s also perfectly acceptable for Parx to advocate for its position. Businesses do just that every day.

But when dealing with public issues such as law — and how the skill games affect bars, restaurants, clubs and other establishments that host them — it is important to make sure everything is done openly and transparently. An investigation by the Attorney General and the ethics board should verify that — or correct it.

However if Yaw and Solomon are serious about the ethics of it, they should both step up and sponsor gift ban legislation and push hard for it to come to a vote. Solomon has pushed for that in the past and has announced again this term.

The Legislature could have avoided this questionable meeting by writing laws to address the situation. They didn’t. Did that have to do with lobbying from Pace-O-Matic, which sponsored a trip to Wyoming for select lawmakers in 2022? Who knows? We do know they didn’t break any laws because there are no laws there to break.

Ethics matter, and legislative and executive officials should be more clearly and zealously accountable for them. Until they all are, all bets are off.