Monday, June 27, 2005 | 9:38 a.m.
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A collective sigh of relief swept through the Capitol last week after the state Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding Pennsylvania's slot-machine law.
But even as the state Gaming Control Board steps on the gas in constructing what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar gambling industry, the road ahead is not clear yet.
More litigation looms.
Charles J. Betters, a developer from western Pennsylvania, is awaiting rulings on separate legal challenges that he filed in federal and state courts, either of which could have serious implications.
"We don't intend to quit," vowed Tom King, a partner in and the attorney for Betters' Pittsburgh Palisades Park housing and retail project on the city's South Side.
The challenge that the state's highest court decided last week, filed by gambling opponents and good-government advocates, was based on arguments that lawmakers violated the constitution by cramming a truckload of complicated legislation into an unrelated bill.
In a carefully worded decision that stressed "trepidation" over interfering with the legislative branch, the justices unanimously disagreed, affirming the statute while striking down some relatively minor provisions.
Betters' federal lawsuit, filed in the weeks after Gov. Ed Rendell signed the slots law last summer, alleges that legislative negotiators who crafted the law illegally included several provisions designed to prevent him from obtaining a slots license.
For example, one of those provisions specifies that, of the seven slots licenses reserved for racetracks, four are earmarked for the four harness-racing tracks authorized in the state and the other three are set aside for the three thoroughbred tracks now licensed.
Betters is among those vying for the license to operate a planned fourth thoroughbred track, which has no special provision for a slots license under the state law.
In his separate lawsuit before the state Supreme Court, Betters maintains that the Legislature unconstitutionally tied the hands of future legislatures by guaranteeing full or partial refunds of the $50 million-per-license fees if certain parts of the law are changed in the next decade.
Even if Betters' litigation is unsuccessful, he believes that last week's Supreme Court ruling gave him a leg up in what is expected to be fierce competition for a stand-alone slots license in Pittsburgh -- one of the seven non-track licenses that the law allows.
The ruling erased the state Gaming Control Board's authority to pre-empt local zoning ordinances in deciding where the 14 slots parlors should be located. And under zoning that Pittsburgh City Council approved, the 635-acre Pittsburgh Palisades site is the only one in the city where a casino or "racino" -- a combined racetrack and casino -- may be operated.
If Betters wins both the track and slots licenses, he will operate both at the site, King said.
One of Betters' likely competitors for the Pittsburgh slots license -- MTR Gaming chief executive Edson "Ted" Arneault, who runs West Virginia's Mountaineer Racetrack and Gaming Resort -- dismissed Betters' claim of any advantage.
Zoning "is just one part of the application process," Arneault said Friday. "I don't think it (Pittsburgh Palisades' zoning) matters at all."
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