HARRISBURG -- State House Republicans today demanded major changes in the way the state Gaming Control Board conducts its background investigations of applicants for slots casino licenses.

The call for change came after one casino owner, Louis DeNaples of Mt. Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos, was charged with perjury last week and was at least temporarily stripped of his slots license. He was charged with not telling the truth about his friendship with some alleged organized crime figures.

The Republican House members said the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement, the primary background checking agency, should be independent of the Gaming Board and have its own separate budget. They said police investigative agencies aren't permitted to tell the gaming board investigators now about some items in an applicant's past, because the bureau isn't a full-fledged law enforcement agency, like the state police are.

Gaming Board members have defended their background investigations, saying the bureau gave them all the relevant information about slots applicants that they needed to make a correct decision on who gets the slots licenses.

The GOP legislators also said the state attorney general, Republican Tom Corbett, should have more involvement in the slots background investigations, along with the state police and the gaming board. The scope of the investigations would be determined by the attorney general, not the gaming board, under the GOP plan.

That would increase Republican influence over the whole gaming process, which Rep. Michael Vereb, R-Montgomery, said "needs to be sanitized."

Mr. DeNaples is a wealthy businessman in northeastern Pennsylvania and has contributed much campaign money to many state politicians over the years. Republicans are wondering if those contributions may have caused the background investigators to overlook some things about him.

Republicans also wondered if those contributions might have been involved in the gaming board's decision in December 2006 to award him a slots license, along with four other applicants. Right now the investigators report to the seven-member gaming board. Board members have rejected any such ideas.

"We should make the (investigation bureau) independent of the (gaming control board) and responsible to the attorney general and the Gaming Board on enforcement matters; and the attorney general on investigations," said Reps. Vereb and Douglas Reichley, R-Lehigh.

They called on the House Gaming Oversight Committee, which is headed by a Democrat, to conduct hearings on their bill, House Bill 1450, to make these changes.