Table Games: Special Elections Loom

With Ohio and Jefferson counties voting Saturday on whether to allow casino table games at their racetracks, more than 4,200 people have already cast early ballots, The Associated Press reports.

For each county, the early votes represent more than 6 percent of their registered voters. By comparison, 5.5 percent of registered voters statewide cast early ballots before the November 2006 election. And, early voting continues through Wednesday in both counties.

The AP's Vicki Smith also delves into a largely unexamined provision of the new table games law. While most have focused on its language regarding traditional casino games, it would also allow electronic (i.e., no human dealer) multi-player poker, blackjack and the like.

"But West Virginia’s new legislation and emerging technology in the gambling industry give casino operators a choice they’ve never had before: Hire live dealers, who require salaries, benefits and overtime pay, or buy a $135,000 machine with a perky virtual dealer who never gets sick, never needs a break and can deal twice as many hands as her human counterpart," Smith writes.

The tracks are adamant that they won't go down that road.

“It’s a step that’s so far below table games it wouldn’t even be worth looking at,” Ted Arneault, president of Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort in Chester, told Smith. “We want the action, the crowd, and it would not add much over what we already have. We are after people yelling and screaming and having fun with other people.”

The Wheeling News-Register, meanwhile, underscores how the groups behind ad campaigns both for and against table games don't have to follow the disclosure rules that govern candidates.

"Issue-oriented political groups aren’t required to file campaign finance reports, and they don’t have to put disclaimers at the bottom of their ads, said West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office spokesman Ben Beakes. They don’t have to say how much money they spend overall, or who has contributed to their campaigns."

But Beakes also told reporter Joselyn King that these campaigns still can't deploy workers within 300 feet of a voting place, and they can’t buy votes. In my AP story, gambling foes question whether table games supporters are doing the latter by paying people $50 to take part in focus groups. Not true, supporters say.