HARRISBURG -- Casinos, slot machine manufacturers and suppliers and other companies associated with the 14 new slots casinos coming to Pennsylvania yesterday announced formation of a trade association to represent them in Harrisburg.

The Keystone Gaming Alliance's purpose is "to create a better understanding of the gaming entertainment industry by bringing facts about the industry to the public, elected officials and media," said Stephen Schachman, managing director of Duane Morris Government Affairs, which helped form the association.

With legalized gambling soon to expand in the state, "there are a multitude of new, common issues facing all facets of the gaming industry," he said. "The alliance will be a common voice to address those issues."

Membership is open to licensed gambling operators, both racetracks and nontrack venues, as well as members of the hospitality and entertainment industries, makers of slots equipment and games and nongaming vendors. The 2004 law legalizing casinos calls for seven racetrack casinos, five stand-alone casinos and two resort hotel casinos.

The first meeting of the gaming industry group will be March 6 in Harrisburg.

That is also the day when anti-gambling forces will assemble in Harrisburg for a completely different reason -- to hold a public hearing on a bill to rescind the law that legalized the 14 casinos.

CasinoFreePA yesterday announced plans for a hearing on House Bill 2298, which would repeal Act 71 of 2004.

The group said that so far it has been unable to get the Legislature to hold a hearing on the bill. The anti-casino group complained that Act 71 was passed with little debate in the early morning of July 4, 2004, similar to the secretive and unpopular action of the Legislature in passing its now-repealed pay raise in the early morning of July 7, 2005.

"With all the criticism our General Assembly has taken for passing both the slots law and its infamous pay raise bill in unconstitutional fashion, we thought the House would at least agree to hold a public hearing on a slots repeal bill, but it hasn't," said CasinoFreePA coordinator Dianne Berlin.

She described her group as a statewide coalition of groups and individuals who are opposed to bringing casino gambling to Pennsylvania.

As things now stand, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, created by Act 71, is expected to issue the first of the 14 casino licenses this fall.