Those rules are even more exacting when it comes to conversations with the people the agency regulates. That policy places strict controls on when and how the board’s members and its top staff can interact with outsiders, including lawmakers. The landmark 2004 law that legalized gambling in Pennsylvania makes clear that the regulatory agency should be impervious to outside influence by requiring it to adopt a rigorous code of conduct. The emails also raise questions about whether the Gaming Control Board should have disclosed the meeting to the public. They do not have to name the public officials they lobby, or even identify the issue they want officials to support. Pennsylvania law requires lobbyists to disclose only a bare minimum of information about their activities. The records provide a glimpse into the vigorous lobbying of public officials that the public rarely sees. The effort is captured in emails and other documents, obtained by Spotlight PA, that are now part of a bare-knuckle legal fight over expanding gambling in Pennsylvania. The meeting that day was the culmination of an intense, behind-the-scenes push to influence the decision-making of the agency tasked with being an independent arbiter of gambling in Pennsylvania. Parx got its wish: Within weeks, the board shed its neutral stance and aligned with Parx and others in a court fight to declare skill games illegal.

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