A new casino enters Cumberland County, Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Game Control Board today unanimously voted to grant GW Cumberland Op. Co., (Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment, Inc., Parx Casino operator) a license to build a Category 4 casino in Cippensburg Township, Cumberland County.
The award concludes the process that began on February 22, 2018, when Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment, Inc. secured the right to locate the casino at a winning bid of $8,111,000 at the fourth Category 4 auction held by the board. They submitted an application to the board later that year to find a newly constructed facility right next to exit 81 State Route 27, but later amended the application to place the casino at the former Lowe's Home Supply store in the same municipality's Shippen Town Center.
Subsequently, after repositioning the casino proposed by the applicant, the board conducted an in-depth background investigation of the application at hearings held in Sippensburg Township on March 25, 2019 and May 20, 2021, along with collecting input from citizens, community organizations and public officials. Today's board of directors held a final authorization hearing where representatives of GW Cumberland Op. Co. were asked about the project by board members prior to the vote.
The Category 4 slot machine license allows businesses to operate 300 to 750 slot machines, and they can also request permission to operate up to 30 table games for the first time for $2.5 million, with the additional cost of adding an additional 10 table games after the first year of operation. The table game certificate was also approved by the board at today's public meeting.
According to information submitted to the board today, Parx Casino Shippensburg will offer the following services upon opening within its 73,000-square-foot facility:
- 500 slot machines
- electronic table game
- restaurant and sports bar facilities
The facility, which will become a non-smoking facility, is expected to create 175 construction jobs and aims to open at the end of 2022. If that happens, Parx Casino Sipensburg is expected to have more than 125 full-time and equivalent full-time jobs. Casinos also plan to offer sports betting in the future.