The Majestic Star Casino in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is finally under construction after plenty of setbacks and obstacles.  This has made owner Don Barden extremely happy.  Unfortunately the two casinos that have been planned for the Philadelphia locations, SugarHouse and Foxwoods, are still being delayed thanks to a few lawsuits, zoning issues, battling politicians, and angry citizens.  The $986 million Foxwoods and $550 million Sugarhouse are both sitting idle with the blueprints the only thing ready to go.

Anyone who lives in the state of Pennsylvania should be concerned over the delay of the casinos and their impending construction.  With the house market tanking and property taxes rising, residents of the state who were counting on the casinos revenues to bring some tax relief are being saddled with the climbing property taxes.  The total tax relief that these two casinos are going to bring is estimated to be around $613 million.

Democratic legislators in Philadelphia have made the delay even longer thanks to the plan they are setting up to look at "a collaborative, inclusive process aimed at finding new locations for the city's slots gambling casinos."  They have pointed out that there are other gaming establishments in the state that are currently up and running or well into the construction phase and will help out with the tax burden until the other two’s problems are settled.   

The two casinos, which should’ve been close to their grand openings by now, are looking at not even having their ground broke until last this year, pushing their openings to somewhere between 2010 and 2011.  Licenses for the two casinos were granted in 2006, both to be located along the Delaware River.  Questions were raised about the validity of the licenses and trouble has been the answer every since considering that the now defunct mayor of the town granted the licenses and only the state government has the authority to do that.

Residents of the area of the two proposed sites have been complaining loudly that there were never included in the process that decided the sites for the casinos.  They feel that they are too close to residential areas, schools, and churches, and this has helped fuel the state government into looking for alternative sights.  Both the state and the city legislators are feeling the pressure from the citizens and they are endeavoring to push the process along and come up with a viable solution.