Gamblers eager to play table games at West Virginia's racetrack/casinos will have to be patient for months, as West Virginia Lottery officials say the tracks' intent to start next month was overly ambitious.
Lottery officials suggest November may be a more realistic target for poker, blackjack, roulette and craps to start at the two Northern Panhandle tracks, because state employees must be hired and trained to monitor the games.
The process of seeking applicants for the surveillance and auditing positions, about 13 at each gambling location, could only begin after voters in Hancock and Ohio counties approved adoption of the games in June, John Melton, an attorney for the lottery commission, said yesterday.
"We were not at liberty to go out and try to hire anybody until the two tracks got local referenda passed," he said. "We've hired just a handful of people so far, and some of the people we hire have to give notice to current employers, and then have to be trained to recognize the games. It's not a quick process."
The racetrack/casinos also have hired few of their necessary employees, but hundreds of potential dealers hoping to be employed at Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center and Mountaineer Race Track and Gaming Resort are taking classes at West Virginia Northern Community College. Wheeling Island intends to hire 350 dealers for 62 table games and Mountaineer 442 dealers for 90 tables.
The racetrack/casinos lobbied for the right to offer table games, supplementing their slot machines, to compete with the new slots parlors in Pennsylvania. They originally expressed eagerness to offer poker as soon as Labor Day, with the other games -- which take longer to set up -- following a month or so later.
Kim Florence, a spokeswoman for Wheeling Island, said it is proceeding with construction to create space for the table games and is now using Nov. 1 as a target date. She said the casino expects to meet its hiring goal by then but the opening will depend on the lottery commission.
Officials from Mountaineer declined to comment on the new timetable.
About 350 students are enrolled in dealer classes taking place at Mountaineer and about that many in Wheeling, but more are needed since not all will complete the training or meet the casinos' hiring standards, said Michael Koon, vice president for economic and workforce development at West Virginia Northern Community College. He said additional classes will begin at each location next week, preparing more dealers.
West Virginia has two other racetrack casinos. Voters in Jefferson County in June rejected table games at Charles Town Races & Slots. Election officials in Kanawha County, meanwhile, are counting ballots today after preliminary tallies from a referendum Saturday showed approval of the gambling expansion for Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Center by just 33 votes, out of 45,055 cast.
First Published: August 17, 2007, 2:15 a.m.
