Voters in a second county in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle have voted to allow the local racetrack to become a full-scale casino by adding table games to its slot machines. The unofficial results yesterday in rural Hancock County, at the state's northern tip, were 5,021 for and 3,506 against, or 59 percent to 41 percent.
The vote sought by Mountaineer Race Track and Gaming Resort follows a similar one in Ohio County, which authorized table games at Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center. Voters in Jefferson County, in the fast-growing Eastern Panhandle, rejected the idea. The fourth and final referendum will be held for Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming in Nitro, in Kanawha County, which includes Charleston.
The West Virginia Legislature authorized table games, subject to local referenda, to help the tracks compete with slot machines recently authorized statewide in Pennsylvania. "Mountaineer plans to install 90 table games, with about half of those to be poker tables. Instructors have been trained by West Virginia Northern Community College, which also is training workers for Wheeling Island," reports Paul Giannamore of the Sunday News-Register of Wheeling. For his story, click here.
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