I admit to being floored that the state gaming commission wound up with nine applications for interactive gaming licenses at $10 million a pop.

Pennsylvania has some of the highest gaming taxes and license application fees in the world. Oh, by the way, that $10 million application fee was a “bargain,” because now if any of the four casinos which didn’t apply by the July 16 deadline try to get in on the action, it will cost an additional $2 million.

Casinos which didn’t apply during the first round have a 30-day window, until Aug. 14, to apply for category-specific online licenses, such as slots, table games and poker, at $4 million each.

Gaming interests across the country are looking at Pennsylvania’s exorbitant fees and taxes and licking their chops.

“If Pennsylvania can get that kind of money, we should be pushing the envelope, too,” they are essentially saying.

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, the gambling floodgates opened in earnest. Pennsylvania is among more than 20 states considering sports betting. The legislation is already in place here in the commonwealth; now it’s a matter for the gaming commission to set up rules and regulations as it receives applications. As of this date none has been received.

One possible reason for the slowness of sports betting applications might be the sky-high tax of 36 percent, or four times more than in New Jersey, which was the first to introduce sports betting a little more than a month ago.

The casinos which have applied for online casino gambling applications include Mount Airy in Mount Pocono; the Sands in Bethlehem on behalf of the Wind Creek Native American nation; Parx, Harrah’s, Sugar House and the soon-to-come Live! Philadelphia, all in Philadelphia; Hollywood at Penn National in Grantville; Rivers in Pittsburgh; and Valley Forge.

Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson was vehemently opposed to online gambling, and if the Sands company had kept the property the application might not have been made, but since the company is being sold to cash-rich Wind Creek, Sands as the existing owner had to make the application.

The presumption is that Wind Creek will reimburse Sands for the $10 million. If the Sands-Wind Creek deal falls through, which is highly unlikely, look for Sands to withdraw from the licensing process.

The four casinos that did not apply include Mohegan Sun in Plains Township, Luzerne County near Wilkes-Barre, Presque Isle in Erie, Lady Luck Nemacolin in Farmington and The Meadows in Washington, Pennsylvania.

Mohegan Sun is involved in online gaming in New Jersey through Resorts Casino on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. The Native American nation also has operated resortscasino.com since July 2015.

The four have until Aug. 14 to submit a petition. The state gaming board has 90 days to approve a petition for interactive gambling once the application is considered complete. Casinos have 60 days after that to pay the application fee.

If there are any interactive gambling certificates still remaining after casinos in Pennsylvania get first dibs, the gaming board would set a time schedule to begin getting applications from qualified applicants from outside the state.

The way the state is constantly crying that it doesn’t have enough money, one might think that casinos have not helped the state’s bottom line Nothing could be further from the truth. Pennsylvania’s casinos were responsible for bringing in $1.4 billion during the 2016-17 fiscal year, and that eye-popping total is projected to have risen since then.

Now, with new forms of gambling, the rise in the tax take is projected to be hundreds of millions more in the coming year. Even now, without the recent expansions, Pennsylvania’s casinos have generated more gross revenues than any other state except Nevada and more tax revenue than any other state, according to the American Gaming Association.

Although just in its infancy, the state approved participation since May in the iLottery, which allows gamblers to place their lottery bets online. It also has sold five licenses for a total of nearly $128 million to existing casino owners to set up minicasinos elsewhere in the state. The state still has five more licenses to auction off.

Online gambling became legal in Pennsylvania last October. When the state originally approved legal gambling in 2004, it allowed slot parlors to operate virtual lottery terminals. Six years later, the state included poker. Now, there are 12 — soon to be 13 — casinos. The newest is scheduled to be built near the Philadelphia sports stadium and arena complex.

When Gov. Tom Wolf signed the expansive gambling legislation in 2017, Pennsylvania became the fourth state to allow online gambling. This includes online slots, poker and table games, daily fantasy sports, sports betting, video gaming terminals at truck stops and airports and other forms of gambling.

If the state is worried about any of the much ballyhooed downsides of gambling — addiction and increased crime among them — it certainly does not show it.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com