Q&A with state Sen. Chris Gebhard

One of the many legislators keeping a keen eye on the gaming industry is state Sen. Chris Gebhard. As chair of the Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee, the Lebanon County Republican oversees gaming legislation and is at the forefront of the skill games discussion. City & State spoke with Gebhard on current trends in gaming and what to expect on the skill games regulation beat. 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve introduced legislation looking to implement financial literacy education in high schools. How can education and public outreach related to gambling best reach young people?

One of the main goals we did when we made the push to have financial education be part of the curriculum across the commonwealth was to give people the opportunity to understand and learn how different financial decisions may impact them directly – both in the short term and long term. I think how I would tie that in with gaming and gambling is that I would view those as more of an entertainment activity. It shouldn’t be looked at as an opportunity to create a long-term, profitable stream of income. You need to understand that if you go and lose $1,000, how that impacts you. People need to understand that a lot of it comes down to understanding odds and statistics and that there’s a reason why casinos are really nice and their lights are always on – because they don’t really lose. The casino may lose a couple times, but long term, they know they’re going to win. Educating the general public about how all that works is important. 

Where did conversations regarding skill games leave off in Harrisburg and how do you expect those games to be defined or classified under a new law?

I think there certainly has been an energy and willingness to get something in this case. When we talk about skill games, in particular, it is an industry that has come to us and asked to be regulated and has to be taxed. I believe that is an effort on their part to create legitimacy in an industry that has kind of been a little bit in that gray area in terms of what the gaming law, how the gaming law was originally written, and what these types of games are. They've come to us and they've said ‘we would like to be regulated and taxed’ – you don't have that happen every day that somebody volunteers to want to do that. Now the devil is always in the details

We've been trying to negotiate over the past, I’d say, 14 to 16 months about what that framework looks like and I believe we have gotten relatively close to that finish line. I was of the belief that as we worked through budget negotiations and the myriad of issues we tried to address that last week of June, which spilled over into the beginning of July, that skill games were going to be one of those issues that we did address, but we were not able to consolidate enough support across the building and have the energy to move it across the finish line. However, I think that failure to get action at the beginning of July has only cemented the idea that we need to get something done. It has my support, it has Majority Leader Joe Pittman’s support and President Pro Tem Kim Ward’s support in the Senate, and we have the governor’s support to accomplish something. The governor came out at a press conference recently and said getting a solution crafted for skill games, and figuring out where that tax revenue could be allocated is an issue that he's behind. 

Do you expect skill games to be regulated under the existing Gaming Act?

The main goal is going to be to codify the definition of what a skill game is. Right now, skill games have been deemed to fall outside the definition of gaming within the Gaming Act, and that’s created this court battle we’ve seen. Some people think they’re illegal gaming machines and the people that run skill games argue they’re legal because they’re not gambling machines, and the courts have ruled in favor of the skill games folks. Our main job now is going to be to codify that in writing, in terms of what the definition of a skill game is, and mold that into the framework that is the Gaming Act. 

I describe it as falling within the Gaming Act. I think if you were going to say exactly how it would happen, there may be a section added to the Gaming Act to specifically address skill games.