Ohioans heading to W.Va. to enjoy casino gambling

Ohio voters have refused to expand gambling beyond the state lottery and horse racing.

WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia took its first step into the world of full-fledged casino gambling Friday, and several Ohioans were there to help make it happen.

The retired coal miner and maintenance worker from Barnesville, Ohio, joined dozens of other gamblers to christen the 20-table poker room at Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center in the Ohio River.

The 65-year-old swung by the 10 a.m. opening on his way to an afternoon doctor’s appointment. He liked what he saw.

“I’d come here all the time, now that they have this,” Miller said before sitting down at one of the low-wager tables at Wheeling Island, a subsidiary of Delaware North Companies of Buffalo, N.Y.

Paul Heagy lined up for poker after morning rains scrubbed the day’s construction job. The Martins Ferry, Ohio, resident had occasionally played the slots at Wheeling Island, but was not ready to plunk down the several hundred dollars in his pocket.

“I’ll come a lot more often,” said Heagy, 47. “It’s tough to beat the computer, but you can beat another mind.”

Wheeling Island, in the Ohio River just south of Martins Ferry, attracts many Ohioans unable to play casino-style games legally in their home state. Three times since 1990, Ohio voters have overwhelmingly defeated ballot issues that would have expanded gambling beyond the state lottery and horse racing.

Another track in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle, MTR Gaming Group’s Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort, expected to cut the ribbon at its River Poker Room offering 37 tables later Friday.

The rustling cards and clinking chips denote the culmination of a multiyear fight to legalize casino table games in the Mountain State. After years of failed legislation, lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year allowing the four racetrack counties to vote on the question.

Ohio County was the first to grant approval, for Wheeling, while later elections cleared table games for Mountaineer in Hancock County and Nitro’s Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Center. The Kanawha County track will unveil its table games later this year. Tri-State is owned by Racing Corp. of West Virginia, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Hartman & Tyner Inc.

Voters rejected table games in Jefferson County. Charles Town Races & Slots, owned by Penn National Gaming Inc. of Wyomissing, Pa., can request a new election in two years.

As a dry run for Friday, both Wheeling and Mountaineer held charity poker events earlier in the week after the new dealers spent weeks practicing with other employees.

Both tracks plan to add more table games, including blackjack, craps and roulette, by Jan. 1, Lottery Commission officials said.

The tracks already host 12,000 video slot- and poker-style machines for the Lottery. Racetrack officials sought table games to blunt losses from competing slot parlors in neighboring Pennsylvania. Between 14 percent and 48 percent of the panhandle tracks’ gamblers hail from that state. Both have already seen revenues decline since the nearby slot casinos opened in late 2006.

Officials say the long-sought table games will give West Virginia’s tracks the necessary edge. They also promise to expand their regional appeal and attract gamblers who prefer such live action over slots.

“It just puts us in a whole different light,” said Wheeling Island General Manager Bob Marshall. “We’re a casino now. We couldn’t say that yesterday.”

The Lottery also recently allowed the two tracks to remain open around-the-clock. Each had been open 21 hours a day.

Table games foes cited the social ills of problem gambling, and warned of the state’s increasing reliance on such revenues. The tracks helped sway voters with promises of multimillion-dollar expansions and hundreds of added jobs. Marshall cited the new hires manning the poker room, and the signs of construction in the facility.

“What we said is going to happen, is going to happen,” he said.