After a 10-day standoff, Governor Ted Strickland and legislative leaders reached a compromise on July 10, permitting up to 2,500 video lottery terminals, or VLTs, at each of Ohio’s seven horse-racing tracks without a ballot vote. Legislators scrambled to finish the two-year $51 billion deal before the July 14 deadline when a second week-long budget extension would have expired. The slots, which are estimated to bring in $933 million in revenue for Ohio’s public schools, are projected to debut in May 2010.

The budget legislation calls for each track to pay the state $65 million for a gaming license, beginning with $13 million on September 15. Another $80 to $100 million must be spent over the next few years on facility upgrades. However, Ohio’s horse racing industry—including both racetrack owners and horsemen— are optimistic that the implementation of the slot machines will give the industry a much needed boost.

Not all Ohioans are pleased with the addition of VLTs to the horse-racing tracks. Several religious organizations are vowing legal action against the state in order to persuade the Ohio Supreme Court the machines are unconstitutional. The groups will argue that lotteries are the only kind of gambling permitted under the state constitution. Religious leaders argue that the VLTs will increase gambling addiction and prey on the poor. They believe that raising taxes would be preferable to implementing the racetrack slots.