Another update this time mentioning October as a potential time frame for the vote. IMO anyone who thinks this will eat into local slot revenues is crazy. This has to be one of the largest if not the largest areas in the U.S. that is under served by table gaming.
http://www.journal-news.net/page/con...id/522822.html
2nd table game vote may be in cards for track
Some see opportunity in referendum, others remain unsure if Jefferson County is ready
MORGANTOWN (AP) - Two years to reconsider, a faltering economy and a new deal that would give host communities a bigger slice of the financial pie are creating momentum for a second vote on whether to let Charles Town Races & Slots put poker, roulette and other table games alongside more than 5,000 slot machines.
Unemployment has more than doubled in Jefferson County over the past year to 8.3 percent in June, and there is a growing threat that nearby Maryland's venture into slots will lure away thousands who have historically come to the Eastern Panhandle to gamble.
The prospects of retaining customers, creating jobs and increasing local tax revenues have become so appealing that a Charles Town accountant has launched a ''Yes On Table Games'' Web site and fledgling Facebook group. Some say the vote should be held as early as this fall.
''This time around, everybody knows somebody who's lost their job, and everybody knows somebody who's lost their house,'' says Eric Lewis, whose group is raising money to campaign but is declining contributions from track parent Penn National Gaming Inc. and its employees. ''This is an opportunity to get 500 jobs at a minimum.''
Even an outspoken state legislator who fought table games in 2007 has come around, swayed by recent changes that would double the percentage of revenue distributed to counties and cities that host the state's four racetrack casinos.
If the measure passes in Jefferson County, the other counties would benefit.
In the summer of 2007, voters in Hancock, Ohio and Kanawha counties approved table games for their race tracks. Jefferson, however, rejected the games at Charles Town by a 12-point margin, 56 percent to 44 percent.
But with millions of additional dollars now possible for schools, cities and county government, ''I think we have moved the needle ... to somewhere around dead center,'' says Delegate John Doyle, D-Jefferson.
''I think it's in the margin of error now - or will be, once all the people of Jefferson County learn about the changes.''
While public support is encouraging, Penn National has yet to decide whether it will seek another election.
''We just haven't figured out where we are yet in terms of 'go' or 'no go,''' says John Finamore, senior vice president of regional operations for Penn National. ''We have done a lot of polling, but we're still analyzing that data, what it means and when we should go.''
And timing is everything.
The Jefferson County Commission decided to hold a special Nov. 7 election on a new zoning ordinance. Many residents of the high-growth county, a bedroom community to greater Washington, D.C., want to slow down the influx of people and the conversion of farms to subdivisions. But the sentiment is not universal, and Doyle says Penn National and the county would be crazy to run both votes simultaneously.
''It is table games that would be in greater danger of losing if you run the two together, although it would create problems for both,'' he says, arguing Penn National would be wiser to seek a referendum in October, before the zoning vote and the holidays.
Regardless of when it happens, passage is no sure bet. Support appears to be lukewarm in one potentially powerful voting block, the Charles Town Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association.
Though the HBPA endorsed table games last year, President Randy Funkhouser says many of his 3,000 members have reservations because legislators have cut the percentage of gambling profits dedicated to horsemen.
''I think it would be a horse race to the finish at this point,'' he says. ''You can be on board as a board, but to get your rank and file energized to vote is a different matter when their future seems bleak.''
West Virginia legalized slot machines in 1994 as a way to save its then-dying horse industry, and Funkhouser acknowledges they have been ''very beneficial over the long haul.''
The purses are fatter, the thoroughbreds are of better quality, and the horse industry has become an engine that Thalheimer Research Associates Inc. of Lexington, Ky., says pumps more than $113 million a year in direct spending into the local economy.
But Funkhouser says prosperity for the horsemen has not kept pace because of 2001 tax changes and a 2005 decision to divert $11 million a year from the purse fund to pay down a shortfall in the workers' compensation fund - a fund the horsemen could not join because they are considered independent contractors.
''What the horsemen are saying is there has to be a fair distribution of revenue here,'' he said.
Funkhouser also worries about the ''cannibalization effect'' table games might have on slot revenues as players shift from one form of gambling to another.
Richard Thalheimer, the Kentucky industry consultant, argues that's a legitimate concern: If West Virginia had a tax structure that treated the revenues from each form of gambling the same way, he says, it would not be creating a system of winners and losers.
In Iowa, the only other state currently that has live racing, slots and table games in a single location, Thalheimer says he concluded table games hurt slot revenues.
Joel Simkins, an analyst for Macquarie Research Equities, dismisses the notion that table games would dilute Charles Town's core business as ''entirely untrue'' because a finite number of people want to play slots.
In a March report, he argues tables would broaden Charles Town's appeal, attracting Baltimore and Washington gamblers who now travel twice as far to play in Atlantic City, N.J. He predicts slot revenues could grow by about 7.5 percent.
Penn National, one of the nation's largest gambling companies with operations in 14 states from Maine to New Mexico, calls the cannibalization argument preposterous. Profit margins are higher on slots than tables, Finamore says, and the company wouldn't have both if they didn't complement each other.
''We think we all - including the horsemen - will make money off this, and we think our core business, slots, will increase,'' he says. ''Why else would we do this?''