Lebanon County Lawmaker Wants Bigger Hollywood Casino Tax Share

A Pennsylvania state lawmaker is renewing a push to redirect more of Hollywood Casino's local tax revenue to Lebanon County, arguing the county has been shortchanged for nearly two decades under the state's 2004 gaming law. 

Rep. Russ Diamond, a Republican who represents Lebanon County, said the county received nothing from the casino until 2018 and now collects just $220,000 a year, compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars Dauphin County has taken in over the same period, not including online casinos.

Who Benefits?

Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course sits mostly in Dauphin County's East Hanover Township, with a sliver of the racetrack property extending into Lebanon County's East Hanover Township, according to WHTM/ABC27. 

That geography has shaped who benefits from the local share payments created under the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act of 2004, which directs a portion of casino tax revenue to host communities to offset the impact of hosting a gaming venue.

Dauphin County and its township have collected nearly $273 million and $22.8 million respectively in local share revenue since the casino opened. Lebanon County, whose portion of the property line intersects the site, has received far less: just over $4.5 million total for East Hanover Township, Lebanon County, and $220,000 a year for the county itself, a figure that only started flowing in 2018.

"But you know what? That money was actually, if you read the intent of the original legislation, intended to offset the cost of bringing gaming to a local community," Diamond told WHTM/ABC27, arguing Lebanon County's smaller allocation does not reflect its share of the impact.

Rep. Tom Mehaffie, a Dauphin County Republican, pushed back on any attempt to shift more of the funding away from his district. "These municipalities, these school districts, and the counties themselves are going to have to raise taxes because they're dependent after 18 years on that money that was made by the casino and that local share," Mehaffie said, adding that Dauphin County should not be penalized because Lebanon County officials initially voted against legalizing gaming and rejected its early revenues.

Harrisburg's Intervention

This is not the first time Harrisburg has intervened on Lebanon County's behalf. Diamond's 2017 legislative effort, folded into the state's Act 42, redirected roughly $330,000 of Hollywood Casino's slot-tax proceeds annually to Lebanon County and a handful of local fire and EMS agencies, amounting to less than 3% of Dauphin County's typical haul, according to WHYY. 

More recently, in December 2025, Sen. Chris Gebhard and Reps. Diamond and John Schlegel announced nearly $3 million in Local Share Account funding for Lebanon County projects, administered through the Commonwealth Financing Authority.

Any further reallocation of Hollywood Casino's local share would need to clear the Pennsylvania legislature, where Dauphin County lawmakers have signalled they will resist changes to a funding formula that has underpinned local budgets for close to two decades.

How The Money Will Be Spent

The Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act of 2004, the law that created the local share program, also established the Commonwealth Financing Authority to administer economic stimulus funding tied to gaming revenue. 

Local share payments were designed to compensate host counties and municipalities for the traffic, public safety and infrastructure costs that come with housing a large gaming venue, rather than to function as a general-purpose subsidy.

Because Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course straddles two counties' East Hanover Townships, the allocation formula has repeatedly needed legislative patches rather than a single clean fix, first with Diamond's 2017 effort under Act 42 and now with this latest push. 

Similar boundary disputes have surfaced at other Pennsylvania casinos where host designations do not cleanly match a facility's physical footprint, though few have drawn the sustained attention Hollywood Casino's Lebanon County shortfall has received.