Table Games Update

The Charleston Gazette reports on the state's first big coup from the approval of casino table games by voters in Hancock and Ohio counties.

Mountaineer Racetrack and Gaming Resort in Chester and the Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center each paid the $1.5 million license fee required for operating such games. All fee revenue _ tracks must also pay $2.5 million annually for license renewals _ go to fund in-home care for seniors.

Both tracks sought table games to blunt competition from slot machine casinos opening in neighboring Pennsylvania. Mountaineer's owner, MTR Gaming Group Inc., also owns one of those Keystone State establishments, Presque Isle Downs near Erie.

But a budget stalemate pitting Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, against the GOP-controlled state Senate threatens to shutter it and Pennsylvania's four other slot operations, The Associated Press reports.

"The fiscal year began Sunday without a new state budget in place, meaning that the government loses its authority to spend money on services it deems to be not essential to the health, safety and welfare of the state’s residents," the AP explains. "Rendell has said casinos would be shut down Monday with the rest of the state’s nonessential services, a scenario that Republican legislators say can be avoided."