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Blotter: New casino opens in Pittsburgh
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The new Rivers Casino near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, opened last weekend to fireworks, confetti, music and capacity crowds. The new site offers over three thousand slot machines, most of which were in use within the first hour after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The new casino also conducted two “test runs” on 5 August and 7 August; casino officials donated the proceeds from those sessions to local charities.
During the “test run” phase, more than three thousand players came for the 5 August session and almost double that number showed up to play on 7 August. Also during this phase, the casino received passing inspections from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the agency that regulates and oversees gaming activities within the state.
The lines for Saturday’s grand opening stretched around the building. Casino staff offered bottled water to those waiting in the heat for the opening ceremony scheduled for noon. Many prospective players stayed in an air-conditioned bus shelter while they waited. The first man in line for the noon ceremony arrived at 5:30 a.m., simply for the honor of being the first player at the new site.
A woman and self-described “avid gambler” from the nearby town of Clarion woke at 4 a.m. and drove two hours to get in line for the grand opening. Another man from suburban Arnold remarked about how good the casino would be for the city, as residents would spend their money in Pittsburgh rather than traveling to neighboring states like West Virginia or New Jersey to gamble.
Other residents were not as pleased with the new facility. Will Thompkins, an organizer with the Pittsburgh-area branch of the NAACP, led a protest at the ceremony. He discussed how the casino would be open twenty-three hours a day and that community groups and social service agencies would be facing numerous problems with a growth in compulsive gambling and a rising crime rate near the casino property.
12-Aug-2009, 15:34
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