CHARLES TOWN -- Now that voters in Jefferson County have OK'd offering casino games at Charles Town Races & Slots, you can bet the track will begin a recruitment campaign to find Eastern Panhandle residents with an interest in becoming blackjack dealers.

"We're going to be running ads and holding job fairs and an open house," Al Britton, the general manager of Charles Town Races & Slots, explained Monday. "We'll start recruiting this week."

In a special referendum on Saturday, voters opened the door to adding blackjack, craps, roulette and poker in Charles Town, which has been home to horse racing for more than seven decades.

There were 6,279 voters supporting table games and 4,343 voting against the proposal, according to Nikki Painter, the deputy elections clerk for Jefferson County. Charles Town Races & Slots paid the $80,000 price tag for the special election and selected the election date as well, Painter said.

About 33,000 people are registered to vote in the county. Already, the Mountain State has three other sites offering table games: the Northern Panhandle's Mountaineer Casino Racetrack & Resort, Tri-State Racing and Gaming Center in Kanawha County and at the Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack.

Voters in those counties gave approval to casino games more than two years ago. At that time, however, Jefferson County voters rejected a proposal to offer the games in the Eastern Panhandle by a vote of 5,650 to 4,445.

"We laid very little ground work because we weren't acting under any presumptions," Britton said. "Until we knew heard the results come in on Saturday night, our total focus was on making our case to the citizens of the county and making it clear what kind of economic engine this will be for the area. Now that the voters have decided the real work begins."

It's been 12 years since Penn National Gaming Inc. purchased the track. After a series of extensive makeovers to the facility and the addition of more than 5,000 slot machines, Charles Town Races & Slots now attracts some 4 million visitors each year. Most of the influx comes from D.C., Baltimore and Northern Virginia, Britton said.

Charles Town Races & Slots will add about 500 jobs because of the new table games, he said.

"We'll going to be recruiting about 350 dealers," he said. "Our plan is to recruit locally and train locally."

Dealers at the Mountaineer Casino Racetrack & Resort in Chester earn about $45,000 a year, Britton said.

"We're talking about jobs that pay well," he said. "Our expectation is that a dealer in the Eastern Panhandle, with our market demographics, will get paid $45,000 a year or more."

Britton predicts it will be mid-2010 before enough dealers have been hired and trained so that Charles Town Races & Slots can begin offering casino games.

"We're not sure about the precise timeline but we're probably looking at six months," he said. "We weren't operating under any presumptions about this vote. Up until now, our complete focus has been on the campaign and getting out the message of what table games would mean to the area."

Charles Town resident John Thomas said he can't wait for the table games, not only to gamble with friends but because the state needs an advantage in attracting tourists' dollars.

"West Virginia doesn't have a lot to offer," the 43-year-old Eastern Panhandle native said. "The mountains, location, sparse population and lack of infrastructure make it a hard sell for most businesses and industries. It needs tourism to flourish and this will help bring that money in."

But as West Virginia's neighbors Maryland and Pennsylvania begin offering table games, the flow of gambling revenue to the Eastern Panhandle will slow down dramatically, predicts Chuck White, a 32-year-old resident of Charles Town.

"When there's Atlantic City-style gambling in Baltimore and Ocean City, people from Baltimore and D.C. aren't going to be coming all the way out here," White said "We're not investing in anything else and when that money disappears we're going to be left hurting. That's what bothers me about this."

Britton said the threat of table games moving into other locales might affect life at Charles Town Races & Slots.

"That's one of the reasons this vote was so crucial -- to give us a leg up on those other jurisdictions," he said. "Now that we have the ability to offer table games, we're ready to show off our facility and our level of service. That sets us apart."

Many community leaders who opposed table games in 2007 backed the idea this time. Delegate John Doyle, D-Jefferson, for example, switched sides after the Legislature approved a revised revenue-distribution formula that earmarks more money for local governments and schools.

Officials with Charles Town Races & Slots predict table games will bring an additional $4 million to local schools and will boost salaries for all school employees.