HARRISBURG -- The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is sticking with its procedures for background investigations of slot machine license applicants despite criticism from a retired state police official.

"Our background checks are thorough and detailed," said the board's chief counsel, Frank Donaghue, after a three-hour hearing yesterday at which retired state police Lt. Col. Ralph Periandi called for a change.

And state Sen. Jane Earll, R-Erie, often a critic of Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, said she doesn't see a need to make any immediate changes in background checks.

"I don't see any glaring problems that have been brought to light by today's testimony that we need to rush to fix," she said. "But we will continue to wrestle to see if there are ways to make [the slots law] better."

Mr. Periandi, a 30-year state police veteran, said state police should be doing the background checks on casino owners, key employees and vendors rather than having to share the responsibility with the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement, an arm of the gaming board.

He noted that the state slots law, Act 71 of 2004, splits the responsibility for doing background checks between state police and the bureau.

He urged amending Act 71 to give full background check responsibility to the state police, who, he said, have been relegated to doing relatively minor "clerical" checks on slots applicants now. Or, he said, the investigation bureau should be shifted over to the state attorney general's office, the way it is in New Jersey, so it isn't influenced by board members.

Ms. Earll said there is "a certain tug and pull," sort of a turf battle, between state police and the bureau over how much authority each should have.

"It's kind of a natural tension," she said.

Mr. Periandi said the bureau, as it now exists, isn't considered a full-fledged "law enforcement agency," but it would be if it were placed under the attorney general.

Because it's not a recognized criminal investigation group, state police and the FBI are prevented by state and federal law from sharing sensitive criminal information about investigation targets, he said.

Gaming control board Chairwoman Mary D. Colins, bureau Director David Kwait, who worked for the FBI for 30 years, and Mr. Donaghue defended the work of the bureau's investigative arm, saying it's done thousands of background checks in the past three years.

When Ms. Earll asked if the board had gotten any political pressure from the Rendell administration or a legislator to issue a license to a particular applicant, Mr. Kwait said, "Absolutely not."

One reason the bureau has been criticized is a case involving one slots licensee, businessman Louis DeNaples, who opened the $412 million Mount Airy Resort and Casino yesterday in Monroe County.

According to news reports, Mr. DeNaples is the subject of a Dauphin County grand jury probe into whether he was truthful on his slots application.

Board officials said that if the grand jury were to file a charge against Mr. DeNaples in the future, his slots license could simply be revoked.