If residents need further proof that Pennsylvania botched the legislation to permit slots casinos, they should consider the ridiculous impasse over how distributors of the slot machines will operate.

Just when the issue of property tax relief is at its peak -- on Monday, 500 people packed the Capitol calling for the elimination of the property tax -- the very vehicle that promised a reduction in the property tax burden has stalled. Because the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board can't get its act together, the revenue flowing from the first casinos at seven racetracks won't start until June next year at the earliest, instead of March or April.

Twice last week the board could not agree unanimously, as it must do, on whether the new distributing companies serving the casinos should operate in one region or two. These companies would act as middlemen in buying slot machines from manufacturers and selling them to casinos.

Even to debate the merits of this argument is to dignify an absurd situation. There is no good reason to create middlemen at all. It would be one thing if Pennsylvania were awash in such companies -- instead they must be invented.

The break for distribution companies was inserted primarily by Democratic legislators, with the idea to give Pennsylvania companies a slice of the action -- never mind that it adds to the cost of doing business. It is the sort of officious meddling that is par for the course in this state.

As bad as the original idea was, it is nothing to what has happened now. The point of legalizing gambling wasn't to help middlemen; it was to offer relief to those who pay property taxes. That a potential $1 billion in new state revenue is being held up by this Mickey Mouse dispute is intolerable.

Gov. Ed Rendell's reaction was to warn the Gaming Control Board that if it didn't act to resolve the dispute, then the Legislature was ready to do so. We say end the threats and just cut out the middlemen.

The chance could come today when the Senate will consider amendments to overhaul the flawed gambling bill. Unfortunately, with their talent for overlooking the obvious, it is not certain that lawmakers will attempt to tackle the distribution company issue.

Some of the amendments offered in Senate Bill 862, sponsored by Sen. John Pippy, a Republican from Moon, are equally important. One would bar elected officials from having any financial stake in a gambling company or casino. Current law allows officials to hold up to a 1 percent stake -- an outrage that should not be allowed to stand.

Now is the time to fix it all. Pennsylvanians took a chance on legalized gambling and it is past time that the public were made to look like winners.