Pennsylvania Losing Anti-Gambling Representative This Year

Lawmakers in the state of Pennsylvania have spent the last couple of months finalizing legislation that will bring table games to Pennsylvania casinos. There was one voice who consistently has said that the expanded gambling will not benefit the state.

That voice will be going away after this year. Representative Paul Clymer, perhaps the biggest anti-gambling lawmaker in Pennsylvania, will be retiring when his term ends in December. The decision was met with sorrow even from those who opposed Clymer's gambling views.

"If you had to pick one guy in the whole legislature to represent you, it would be Paul Clymer," said Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, a proponent of gambling, as reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer. DiGirolamo then added that Clymer was, "my best friend in Harrisburg."

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania completed legislation that will legalize table games at state casinos. The addition of the table game gambling will allow Pennsylvania to compete with New Jersey as the gambling capital of the East Coast. That is something that Clymer always considered a negative.

"...I tried to point out, that this was not a good deal for Pennsylvania. I didn't want us to become the Nevada of the East, but that's what we will be known as," said Clymer.

Clymer has been a representative for Bucks County for the past thirty years. He is seventy-two years old, and felt that the time was right to move his life in a different direction after all of these years of public service.

January 18, 2010
Posted By April Gardner
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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