Pennsylvania’s House Gaming Oversight Committee held the first of two scheduled informational hearings on online gambling Thursday morning.

Three separate iGaming bills have been filed in Pennsylvania’s current legislative session, one poker-only and two that also allow casino games. The focus of Thursday’s get-together was the HB 649 legislation introduced by Rep. John Payne, who happens to chair the Committee.

In stark contrast to the recent federal online gambling hearing, the sane outnumbered the loonies among the testifying witnesses. Clearly, he who organizes the hearing sets the tone for the debate that follows.

One by one, reps from Caesars Entertainment, Gaming Laboratories International, GeoComply, Spectrum Gaming Group and Penn National Gaming touted both the benefits of a regulated intrastate online gambling market and the utter lack of lurid headlines emanating from the three US states in which online gambling has been authorized.