State Sen. Mario Scavello admitted Wednesday he had Senate leaders working on a bill to expand gambling include language that protects Mount Airy Casino Resort from potential nearby competition.

“I’m doing it for the jobs,” Scavello said in an interview with The Times-Tribune. “I want to protect the jobs in Monroe.”

Scavello, R-Mount Pocono, represents a Senate district that covers parts of Monroe and Northampton counties.

He actually voted against the bill on Oct. 25, because he said he believes gambling would have grown too much.

“Everywhere you go, you’re going to be able to gamble,” Scavello said. “At some point, when does it end?”

As long as expanded gambling exists, he said, he wants to protect Mount Airy’s jobs. More than 1,100 people worked there as of June 30, according to state data.

Mount Airy spokesman John McCook said Mount Airy has no comment.

The bill language limits the proximity of new slot machine casinos.

“A category 4 slot machine license may not be located in a sixth-class county which is contiguous to a county that hosts a category 2 licensed facility,” the language says.

That means new, smaller slot machine casinos can’t open in Wayne, Pike or Carbon counties, all sixth-class counties adjacent to Monroe, to compete with Mount Airy, a category 2 licensee.

The bill generally prevents minicasinos from opening within 25 miles from an existing, established casino, but the special rule for Mount Airy almost triples the distance around it where the new gambling centers can locate.

Gambling laws before the new bill already expanded the buffer zone around some of the other 10 casinos, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

State Sen. John Yudichak represents Carbon County while Sen. Lisa Baker represents Pike and Wayne counties.

Efforts to reach Baker and Yudichak were unsuccessful.

Yudichak voted for the bill; Baker voted against it. The House and Senate passed the bill and Gov. Tom Wolf signed it into law in late October.

To help close a major state budget gap, the new law allows for the creation and taxation of new, small casinos with up to 750 slot machines and 30 table games, existing casinos to operate gambling ventures in airports, and trucks stops to host up to five slot machine-style video gaming terminals.

Scavello defended Mount Airy’s special treatment.

He said the provision was strictly about preserving the financial health of Mount Airy, the second worst-performing casino among the 10 major ones.

Last year, Mount Airy earned $184.5 million in gross revenues, about a third of the $551.7 million the top earner, Parx Casino in Bucks County outside Philadelphia earned, and ahead of only Presque Isle Downs and Casino, the casino racetrack outside Erie, which earned $130.3 million, according to Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board statistics.

Mount Airy is the only county that pays a local share assessment to adjacent counties, including Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike, he said.

Scavello said the law also contains language that will provide $4 million to boost development around Presque Isle until that casino begins earning at least $150 million in gross revenues each year.

Mount Airy, founded by Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples, is now owned by a holding company controlled by trusts established to benefit his children and grandchildren. His children oversee run the trusts with his daughter, Lisa DeNaples, as the leader.

Campaign finance records through 2016, show no one named DeNaples ever contributed money to Scavello, who won his Senate seat in 2014.

Since Sept. 30, 2014, the Northeast Leadership Fund, a Plains Township-based political action committee funded mostly by business owners across the region, contributed $35,000 to state Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati’s campaign committee.

During that period, DeNaples gave $45,000 to the leadership fund, which contributes to a wide variety of election candidates and other political action committees.

An official at Penn National, which operates the Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course near Harrisburg, already publicly threatened to sue over Mount Airy’s special treatment.