There was a little referendum this weekend that puts some more poker on the map in Darvin Moon Country …

Jefferson County, WV, approved “table games” — including blackjack, craps, roulette, three-card poker, and real poker — at the sure-to-be-renamed Charles Town Race and Slots. In fact, the poker room will likely open before the rest of the new-and-improved “racino” … with cards looking to get in the air by June 2010. The big cities likely to be feeding it players are Baltimore and Washington, DC.

It was a close-ish vote landslide victory, with 6,279 out of 10,622 votes cast supporting the measure — enough for poker to win in 29 out of 32 precincts.

Jefferson County had put the same issue to a vote in 2007 and it lost. Watch the commercial(s) below to see how one race track with a need for gambling was able to make a poker difference:

And though it’s not mentioned in the ads, on the go-table-games website ( http://www.yesforjeffersoncounty.com ) they do discuss competition from neighboring states as one of the reasons they needed to act now. Indeed, though Pennsylvania legislators have been dilly-dallying for nearly a year on their poker expansion, their House will be debating the practicalities of expanding gambling (in a way that includes poker) today.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, a Pennsylvania company got the contract to supply all the tables to Charles Town.

ALT HED: Poker = Jobs

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