Happy return: Amended form shows Rendell won at slots

HARRISBURG - He considers himself a "pretty good" blackjack player and likes the ponies, though he has never really been all that lucky a gambler.

But Gov. Rendell - Pennsylvania's biggest cheerleader for slot machines - had an encounter with Lady Luck last spring at Harrah's Chester Casino & Racetrack that is only now coming to light.

He left $2,000 richer, according to Rendell's federal tax return released to The Inquirer last week.

Most people fortunate enough to hit it big at the slots can't contain their excitement. For Rendell, it was not exhilaration but panic.

It would hit the newspapers, he feared, and gambling critics were "going to go wild," he recalled thinking.

And he could imagine the rumors: "It's going to look like Harrah's did something for me, or they rigged the machines for me," said Rendell, who fought to create the state's multibillion-dollar slots industry in 2004. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, we are in trouble.' "

In an interview last week, Rendell spoke about his good fortune for the first time publicly and gave this account:

He was at the "racino" to give a speech to the Chester chapter of the NAACP on April 11, 2008. Afterward, Harrah's executives urged him to test his luck on the $10 Wheel of Fortune machines.

Two attempts and nothing. He reluctantly reached into his pocket and fed $20 more into the machine.

"Guys, I've got to run. This is it," he recalled telling the Harrah's folks.

Then he started to hit. One time, then another, until he built up a total he thought was $200. He asked to cash out. A Harrah's worker handed him a tax form.

"What's this?" Rendell recalled asking.

The IRS requires winners of $1,200 or more on slots to report the money immediately. Rendell had forgotten he was playing the $10 machine, so his "$200" was $2,000.

With the winnings, he treated the two members of his state police security detail each to a $100 gift certificate at Harrah's steakhouse and took the rest home. His wife, Marjorie, "immediately confiscated it," knowing taxes would be due, he said.

"I never saw a dime. My two troopers got $100 gift certificates, Midge got a little shopping money, and Uncle Sam got the rest," Rendell added.

Rendell reported his winnings on his 1040 tax form, which he filed jointly with his wife, a federal appellate judge, to the IRS last month. (The couple reported $446,682 in adjusted gross income in 2008, primarily from their government salaries.)

Tax returns are not public documents, though Rendell has provided them when reporters have asked.

If he had not released his return this year, the public might never have known about his winnings. That's because Rendell did not disclose them on his 2008 Statement of Financial Interest, a public document filed with the state Ethics Commission last week.

The commission considers gambling winnings income, and public officials must report them on their financial interest forms if they exceed $1,300 annually.

Chuck Ardo, Rendell's press secretary, said aides who help the governor fill out such disclosures simply had failed to note the winnings on his seven-page ethics report. Ardo called it a "clerical oversight."

On Thursday, Rendell submitted an amended ethics form listing Harrah's Chester as a source of income.

"The governor certainly was not trying to hide anything," Ardo added.

For Rendell, the slots winnings were the start of a hot streak.

He went on to win friendly wagers with governors in Florida and Arizona when the Phillies won the World Series and the Steelers captured another Super Bowl.

His winnings included not thousands of dollars but a case of cracked crabs.