Exec pitches table games for W.Va. tracks

Vicki Smith

Monday, June 3, 2002 | 9:27 a.m.

CHESTER, W.Va. -- Adding table games to West Virginia's four racetracks would create hundreds of high-paying jobs, satisfy demands of slot machine players and boost business by at least 20 percent, the president of Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort says.

Ted Arneault said last week that he will soon start to seek support for legislation that could introduced in 2003 or 2004. The bill would let tracks offer live versions of poker, blackjack and other games that patrons now play on touch-screen machines.

"There's no difference other than that one is being done manually and one is being done through the video format," Arneault said. "We're already there doing these games, but when it's done live, it's more of a social atmosphere."

"I'd be all for it. Most assuredly," said Joe Vigorito, a 62-year-old postal worker from Warren, Ohio, three $20 bills clutched in his hand as he played the slots at Mountaineer on Tuesday night. "These things are a rip-off."

Vigorito, who prefers dice to slots, drives 70 miles once a week to play at Chester.

"If there were tables, I'd probably be here every night," he said.

West Virginia's racetracks -- Mountaineer, Charles Town Races & Slots, Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming in Nitro and Wheeling Downs -- have a combined 11,000 slot machines. To keep gamblers interested, they constantly upgrade and offer new games.

Jim Buchanan, president of Charles Town Races, was out of state and unavailable for comment Wednesday. A spokesman for the track's parent company, Penn National Gaming Inc. in Wyomissing, Pa., declined comment on Arneault's plans.

Gambling proponents, however, say table games are the next logical step for the racetracks and would keep West Virginia ahead of surrounding states that are likely to approve gambling soon.

Kentucky lawmakers recently killed a bill to allow slot machines at racetracks, but supporters pledge to revive it. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, similar bills are being floated, and two of the four gubernatorial candidates -- a Democrat in Pennsylvania, a Republican in Maryland -- support the idea.

If any of those states were to allow slots at tracks, West Virginia could lose part of its mainly out-of-state clientele.

Allowing table games would protect West Virginia's tracks as destination resorts, Arneault argued.

Studies suggest the games would increase patronage by about 20 percent, he said, "and the state would accordingly get 20 percent more revenue."

As many as 300 dealers would be hired at the four tracks, with salaries ranging between $40,000 and $50,000.

While table games require more labor and money to operate than slot machines, they also provide a "more congenial atmosphere" that gamblers want.

"It's almost without exception that they say, 'When is this going to happen?' " Arneault said. "West Virginia would get a lot of the business that's currently going to Atlantic City."

But House Speaker Bob Kiss said table games would be a hard sell in the Legislature, where many people still distinguish between job preservation and job creation when a gambling bill surfaces.

The Racetrack Video Lottery Act, which allowed slot machines at the tracks, was a move to save existing jobs. It was not intended to create a new casino-based economy for the state, said Kiss, D-Raleigh.

"My read of the Legislature is that that hasn't changed," Kiss said. "If you carry the job creation argument to its logical end, it's saying we want West Virginia to be a site -- as a matter of policy -- for destination gambling. And I don't think the Legislature is willing to go that far.

"For right or wrong, the Legislature has decided to take this middle approach and only approve when it was to protect jobs," he said.

Table games also raise complicated legal issues. They might have to be approved through a constitutional amendment rather than a revision to the video lottery act, Kiss said.

About 10 years ago lawmakers killed bills that would have allowed free-standing casinos and riverboat gambling.

And in the fall of 2000, when Greenbrier County voters had the chance to allow table games at The Greenbrier resort, they overwhelming voted no.

Mike Queen, spokesman for the Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, continues to battle The Greenbrier and opposes table games anywhere else.

"That project was never about one casino at one luxury hotel. It's always been about the expansion of casino gambling in West Virginia," he said. "We're always going to have to gambling, but we have to contain it."

Allowing table games at one property or at one set of properties would lead to similar requests from ski resorts, country clubs and historic hotels.

Kiss, who also worries about opening the flood gates, said he would listen to the tracks' arguments but is not inclined to support table games.

"Our constituents in southern West Virginia don't want this. They don't want us to allow it to permeate every corner of the state," he said. "It's not just moral or philosophical. In some cases, they just don't see it as part of the vision for how they want to develop West Virginia's economy."