Who has casinos first, WV or PA?

Four West Virginia counties are gearing up for elections in June to allow table games at their racetrack casinos. West Virginia needed this, we were told, to keep ahead of Pennsylvania in the gambling arms race.

But if you don't absolutely have to have a human dealer or touch your equipment (or whatever the jargon is for cards, chips and dice), Pennsylvania may win the race:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s gambling regulators on Thursday approved a new slot-machine that mimics table games, allows multiple players and features electronic video dealers that entice players with prerecorded lines like, “Come play with me.”

While Pennsylvania bans traditional table games like poker and blackjack that are run by a human dealer, a machine that offers the games can be legal if the odds are random and one player’s decisions do not affect another player’s odds.

The electronic table game, made by Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master Inc., could begin showing up soon at Pennsylvania’s four slots casinos.

Robert Soper, the president and chief executive of Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs near Wilkes-Barre, said the company has no concrete plans to buy the games, but is very interested.

“It offers a new dynamic, a new form of entertainment,” Soper said.

Some say the Shuffle Master game essentially allows casinos in slots-only states like Pennsylvania and Delaware to circumvent state prohibitions on table games.

As Qui-Gon Jinn would say, "There's always a bigger fish."