Will Vote Delay Affect Table Games?

With two of the four counties holding special elections in West Virginia, to see if table games will join slot machines at their racetracks, after the other two, many are wondering if it will affect the actual implementation of the games if they are approved. Two of the counties made the June 9th deadline, but the other two counties are holding theirs later on.

Hancock and Kanawha will be holding their elections June 30th and in August respectively. Experts say that it does not matter for the tracks because they most likely would not have requested their licenses until after July 1st anyway, so they are good to go. They don’t want to apply for their licenses before July 1st or they would have to come up with more money initially then if they had waited.

The law is written so that any racetrack that would apply before July 1st would have to pay $1.5 million for basically the remainder of June, and then as of July 1st they would have to come up with another $2.5 million. They have to pay $1.5 million for the remainder of the first fiscal year, then $2.5 million for each year after that.

The tracks say that they are going to wait until the last possible moment to file for their licenses, because there is no reason to sit on one and pay for it when they don’t have the facilities available to implement the games. Charles Town Races and Slots said that they wouldn’t probably be applying until next year because they won’t be ready for them until sometime in 2008.




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