Rendell Wants Video Poker

February 25, 2009

Governor Ed Rendell is trying to drum up support for his video poker machines. He wants to see them legalized across the state in bars, restaurants, and clubs. Rendell believes that the poker machines can bring in up to $550 million in much needed tuition relief for the state’s college students.

The idea is that the state allows video poker machines and some of the money obviously would go to the locations that are hosting them. However, the majority of the money would go towards offsetting some of the money that college students have to pay in order to attend college.

There would be certain criteria that the college students would have to meet in order to get the aid from the state; good grades would definitely be a determining factor. Early speculation also states that there would be need based determinations as well to see who truly needs the assistance that would come from the poker revenue.

Some say that the addition of video poker machines is premature considering they just started adding slot machines to the state. They say that there are casinos that aren’t even up and running yet and already the governor is looking to expand gambling to poker. They don’t believe that there is enough to be gained from the poker machines to support the effort.

However, college students disagree. They say that any amount of help that the poker machines might give them would be worth it as the price of education has gotten so high many can no longer afford to attend.