Mountaineer Race Track dedicates additional slot machines

Allison Barker

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2000 | 10:03 a.m.

CHESTER, W.Va. - Mobster Al Capone would be right at home in Mountaineer Race Track and Gaming Resort's newest addition.

The Downtown Chicago Speakeasy Gaming Saloon at the Northern Panhandle track, to be dedicated Thursday, is decorated with neighborhood scenes from the '20s and '30s when illegal gambling abounded and liquor flowed freely despite Prohibition.

The expansion adds 540 new video slot machines, bringing the total number of machines to 1,905 and more than doubling the space for slot machines at the Hancock County complex.

The 32,000-square-foot Speakeasy addition, which opened in August, is part of a $60 million expansion at Mountaineer. The project includes a new 74,000-square-foot, 6,000-seat arena for concerts and boxing and a TV production facility to broadcast horse races to betting centers around the country.

The expansion's second phase, to be completed in April, includes an eight-story, 200-room addition to the track hotel and a 32,000-square-foot conference center.

"We're striving to become a destination resort and a complete entertainment complex," said Ted Arneault, president of MTR Gaming, Mountaineer's parent company. "The addition brings us closer to our goal."

Arneault said more video slot machines were needed to keep up with player demand.

For the budget year that ended June 30, video slots in West Virginia accounted for nearly $3.4 billion in bets. The state's share of profits was more than $95 million.

The Legislature, viewing the machines' increased popularity and rising revenue as a boon to economic development, authorized coin-drop video slot machines in 1999. Backers of the plan beat back critics who attacked what they said is an expansion of gambling in West Virginia.