The odds are still good that before the summer is over, voters in Hancock and Kanawha counties will approve referendums to authorize table games gambling at state licensed racetracks in their counties. But the biggest fish in the pond has already escaped—at least temporarily.

Voters in Jefferson County rejected the idea of adding table games at the Charles Town Races and Slots horse track there at a special election June 9. The same day, though, voters in Ohio County decided by a 2-1 margin to expand gambling opportunities at Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center.

Next weekend, it’s a virtual certainty that Hancock County voters will give their blessing to table games at Mountaineer Track and Gaming Resort outside of Chester. It is also likely Kanawha County voters will agree to allow table games at Nitro’s Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center.

All these one-issue, special elections are being conducted on a Saturday in the summer, an ideal time to limit voter turnout that usually works in favor of the group advocating the issue.

Unfortunately, nearly half of the state tax revenue anticipated by the state lottery commission and the Legislature was expected to come from the Charles Town table games. According to the numbers circulated when the 2007 Legislature passed the table games bill in March, Charles Town would yield 49 percent of the $87 million annually in new tax revenues while Wheeling Island’s operation could be expected to produce only 12 percent.

Mountaineer, which boasts it is a destination resort with a golf course, hotel, entertainment center and spa, figures to have a relatively easy time convincing Hancock County residents it needs this increased option because the job market there is as dismal as down the river in Ohio County. And if that happens, this track will be realize the nearly half the potential profits—and tax revenues—of the remaining three tracks.

In Kanawha County, the vote won’t come until Aug. 11. Charleston Mayor Danny Jones is leading the campaign to convince the voters to approve table games at Tri-State for increased employment and other economic factors. The opposition’s main focus on increased traffic congestion and the limited religious and moral issues of more state reliance on gambling isn’t likely to overcome those arguments.

The issue with voters was obviously the prospect of much-need new jobs in Ohio County but in the booming Eastern Panhandle, there were a variety of opposing arguments. But the one factor the supporters didn’t have in their favor there was the economic need for table games at the Charles Town track. Indeed, the stock of Penn National Gaming, Inc., the owner there, was unchanged after the vote.

So now the best supporters of table games can hope for is about $45 million a year in new money for state and local government budgets, at least until Penn National decides if it wants to submit the question to the voters again in two years. Company executives have already noted that it took two tries to get slot machines approved by voters in Jef