Many Pennsylvania residents who have followed the slot-machine gambling issue over the past several years have harbored the suspicion that the arrival of slots wouldn't be the end of the commonwealth's legalized-gambling initiative. From early on, many people suggested that introduction of table games was somewhere over the horizon.

What those residents — opponents and supporters alike — probably didn't envision was that the table-games issue wasn't as far over the horizon as they might have thought.

In Monday's edition of the Butler Eagle, just below a story about state gambling regulators' vote on Wednesday that would give Pennsylvania's horse-racing tracks the go-ahead to plug in thousands of slot machines, was a story headlined "Competition, need could bring table games to Pa."

"The racetrack owners vying for slot-machine gambling licenses in Pennsylvania appear to be prepared (for table games)," the Associated Press story reported.

"At hearings earlier this month, a member of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board asked various racetrack owners if their facilities could someday accommodate table games.

"The responses? No problem."

While the story went on to say that no one expects any action on table games anytime soon, particularly since it took 18 months of pressure by Gov. Ed Rendell to push through the July 2004 law that legalized Keystone State slot machines, it's unlikely that table games are a decade or two in the future.

In fact, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that if Rendell is re-elected in November, he will use at least the last two years of his second term to push for further expansion of gambling operations.

The argument will be that for Pennsylvania to effectively compete with gambling operations in places such as New Jersey and West Virginia, this state will have to have gambling operations commensurate with or exceeding those of the other nearby gambling states.

Bolstering that argument will be the purported tax benefits to be derived from reaping bigger gambling profits, although the potential tax benefits about which Rendell and many lawmakers boasted prior to the current slots law being passed might not be as great as what was predicted.

Monday's table games article described those games — blackjack, poker and roulette wheels — as the showhorses of the gambling industry. Slot machines were described as the workhorses.

"Table games (bring) your casino a certain cachet," said Joseph Weinert, vice president of the Atlantic City-based consulting firm Spectrum Gambling Group. "The big gamblers in the world don't come into a casino to press buttons (on a slot machine). They lay it on the green felt."

Based on statistics compiled last year by the American Gaming Association, Pennsylvania could become the third-biggest commercial gambling state in the nation, behind Nevada and New Jersey.

Pennsylvania's July 2004 slot machine law allows up to 61,000 slots, which would make the Keystone State the second-biggest slots state behind Nevada.

What happens on the gambling front in neighboring states will be something to be watched as Pennsylvania's slot machines begin operating. Meanwhile, people here should understand that those neighboring states will be watching the progress of Harrisburg's table-games discussion.

Like it or not, for better or for worse, table games are not a matter of "if"; they already have one foot in the door.