Gambling revenue has declined almost everywhere in the East for the obvious reason that the enterprise has hit its saturation point.

Even though gambling is a major industry, generating more than $3 billion a year in Pennsylvania alone, there are only so many gamblers and they only have so much money.Yet the response of lawmakers is to give those same gamblers more options to spend the same amount of money, rather than recognizing that the saturation point is not a bluff.In New Jersey, legislators have responded to the crashes of five big Atlantic City casinos by authorizing online gambling, challenging a federal law that precludes the expansion of sports gambling and exploring the creation of casinos in Northern New Jersey.Across the Delaware in Pennsylvania, where new casinos created the competition that crushed the Atlantic City casinos, gambling revenue declined by just under 1.5 percent in 2014, following a 1.4 percent drop in 2013.Revenue from table games actually increased over those two years, but decreases in slots revenue about 70 percent of casinos' take more than negated those increases.State legislators have reacted with a bill to put slot machines in off-track betting parlors, as if the issue was an inadequate number of machines in the casinos.Now some legislative croupiers want to introduce Internet gambling.Sen. Kim Ward, a Westmoreland County Republican, has proposed that Internet gambling be allowed for players who register through 10 of the state's 12 casinos an important measure to not create new competition for those enterprises, which are de facto partners with the state government.Each casino would pay the state a $10 million permit fee, renewable for $1 million every five years.All told, if all of the eligible casinos went all in on Internet gambling and OTB slots, the state would realize up-front fees of $260 million and 54 percent of annual online gambling revenue.That would produce about $150 million a year, although it's unknown how it would affect regular casino and the state's take.Some lawmakers appear ready to proceed, even though Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada have reported lower revenue from Internet gambling than they had projected.If the Legislature approves Internet gambling it will be available quickly because all of the infrastructure is in place.Lawmakers are motivated by the impending $1.3 billion state deficit, and by the fact that it is very easy to expand gambling.It's harder to impose a fair severance tax on the gas industry, close tax loopholes, enact property tax reform and otherwise increase revenue while more fairly spreading the tax burden.For Pennsylvanians, the real gamble remains in the voting booth.The (Hazleton) Standard-Speaker