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Live! Casino Philadelphia has been on the hook for a new ramp since 2014. Now it’s finally going to write the check.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s Office of Enforcement Counsel and Stadium Casino RE, LLC, operator of Live! Casino Philadelphia, signed off on a consent agreement July 13 closing out a traffic condition that’s followed the casino’s license for more than a decade. It still needs full board approval to become final.
A condition that’s outlived three license renewals
Back in 2014, when the PGCB awarded Stadium Casino its Category 2 slot machine license, the board attached a condition: pay to design and build a new I-76 westbound on-ramp at 7th Street to offset the traffic the casino would bring to South Philadelphia. A competing bidder challenged the award, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld it in 2017.
The ramp obligation stuck around through the 2017 Statement of Conditions, which is when things got complicated.
By 2019, the Delaware River Port Authority, which owns the land where the ramp would sit, told regulators it didn’t support the project. A feasibility study backed that up, finding the ramp wouldn’t do much anyway.
So the board’s 2019 renewal order swapped the construction requirement for a $3 million payment, with an out: if permits weren’t secured by August 2024, the obligation would shrink to up to $1 million in general Stadium District traffic improvements instead.
That 2024 deadline came and went without the required paperwork, so the smaller obligation kicked in.
Philly’s last-minute pitch, and a lawsuit
At Live! Philadelphia’s 2025 license renewal hearing, the City of Philadelphia submitted a list of proposed traffic projects the day before the hearing.
Live! said it hadn’t had time to vet them. The board extended the deadline anyway, on its own initiative, and Stadium Casino pushed back, appealing the extension to Commonwealth Court.
That case was still pending when this new agreement was signed.
What Live! Philadelphia is actually paying
The new consent agreement wraps all of it up:
- $2 million total, funded through Live!’s existing Community Benefits Program
- Paid in equal installments over five years, starting once permits are approved and construction begins
- The payment satisfies every traffic-related condition on the license going back to 2014
- Live! has to drop its Commonwealth Court appeal within three business days of board approval
- If the ramp never gets built — or construction stalls for five-plus years — Live! is off the hook for anything still owed
It’s worth noting this is the same I-76 westbound ramp Gov. Josh Shapiro name-checked in May as part of a nearly $30 million traffic overhaul around the Philadelphia Sports Complex.
Cordish Gaming COO Joe Billhimer was on hand for that announcement, saying the company’s community partners “look forward to working with the State on this plan to improve both traffic flow and pedestrian safety in the District.”
Eleven years, three renewal cycles and one lawsuit later, it looks like the ramp fight is finally over, assuming the board signs off.
