Neighbors weigh gambling options

Even if Western Pennsylvania gets its first slots license this week, West Virginia and Ohio could raise the stakes on casino gambling before the slots parlor opens early next year.

Pennsylvania officials plan to decide Wednesday whether to award the first slots licenses to The Meadows harness racing track in Washington County and five other tracks around the state.

But neighboring states have made their own plans during Pennsylvania's two-year march toward opening a slots casino.

"The reality of what we knew was coming is on the doorstep," said John Cavacini, president of the West Virginia Racing Association, which represents the four tracks there. "We actually anticipated Pennsylvania would be up and running before this."

West Virginia lawmakers expect to vote in January on allowing table games in the four counties that have slot machines. Ohio voters will decide in November whether to legalize slots at seven racetracks and two Cleveland locations.

If The Meadows gets a license -- and that's not certain -- it will take the track's owners until about February to open a temporary casino with 1,500 slot machines.

The state Gaming Control Board plans to vote Dec. 20 on awarding permanent casino licenses for the tracks and seven other locations, including a stand-alone slots parlor in Pittsburgh. A 14th license has been reserved for a future harness racing track.

"The coming of slots to Western Pennsylvania will be a cultural shock," said Ron Porter, co-chair of the Pittsburgh Gaming Task Force, a volunteer group that has looked at the economic and social effects of slots.

Yet even if that's true, other experts said the change seems inevitable.

Gambling has been on a steady march to legitimacy over the past 30 years, from its expansion to Atlantic City, the proliferation of state lotteries and the legalization at Indian reservations, said Greg Caruso, who teaches a class at Carnegie Mellon University called "Culture of Chance."

"There doesn't seem to be anything that will check the tide," he said.

The gambling wave rolling toward Pennsylvania will be akin to going suddenly from night to day, said Denis Rudd, tourism professor at Robert Morris University. By allowing as many as 60,000 slot machines, Pennsylvania could quickly become the nation's second-largest gambling state behind Nevada.

"It will open a lot of states up," Rudd said. "More will jump on the bandwagon. In another 10 to 15 years, everybody will have it anyway."

West Virginia has enjoyed a regional monopoly on slots for 12 years.

Slots parlors at four tracks -- including Mountaineer Race Track and Gaming Resort in Chester, W.Va., and Wheeling Island Race Track and Gaming Resort -- brought in $942 million in fiscal year 2006.

The state expects a "significant decrease" when Pennsylvania's casinos start opening, said Jim Toney, the West Virginia Lottery's deputy director for finance and administration.

Standard & Poor's Rating Services placed Wheeling Island on credit watch "with negative implications" because of the potential impact from Pennsylvania's slots, and issued a negative outlook for Mountaineer. It gives both casinos a B-plus credit rating.

A third of Mountaineer's frequent players come from Pennsylvania.

"For the first time, (West Virginia) is going to see the economic fallout of what's happening in Pennsylvania," Cavacini said.

The West Virginia Racing Association plans to introduce a bill in January that would allow the four counties with slots parlors to add table games. A similar measure failed to come up for a vote this year, but Cavacini said state attitudes seem to be shifting.

In a recent poll by the trade group , 61 percent of registered West Virginia voters said they support adding table games, while 33 percent were opposed.

The percentage of supporters increased 10 points from a poll conducted six months earlier, Cavacini said.

"We think that was caused by a general understanding of the competition from Pennsylvania," he said.

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