West Virginia Will Try For Table Gaming Regulations, Again
West Virginia will see table gaming legislation introduced to their state legislature for the third year in a row, this time pro-table gambling West Virginians are optimistic.
The bill will be brought up Tuesday, and even though the bills presented each of the past two years were all but ignored by legislatures, proponents are hopeful that adjustments to this year's bill will garner more interest.
The bill proposes to allow officials at the state’s four racetracks to petition their respective county commissions and ask that a referendum to allow table gambling be placed before the county’s voters. The racetracks that would benefit from the bill are located in Ohio, Hancock, Kanawha and Jefferson counties.
According to J. King of The Intelligence online newspaper based in W.V., the 2007 bill contains many changes from previous years.
For starters, she writes about the bill that the amount of state tax placed on gross proceeds generated by table gambling has been doubled — from 12 percent to 24 percent. It is expected this rate could be as raised to as high as 34 percent while in the House Finance Committee.
She goes on to say that if a table gambling referendum were to be approved by a county’s voters, the same voters could petition again five years later to recall the measure if they find table gambling hasn’t been beneficial to their community.
What remains the same in the bill is just who gets to vote on a table gambling referendum. Opponents to table gambling had asked that any measure pertaining to the issue go before all voters in the state — not just those living in counties where the racetracks are located.
The proposed bill continues to carry the provision that a table gambling vote be by local referendum — one voted on by residents in a specific county. |
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