CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. – Jane Tabb voted twice against allowing slots at Charles Town Races, a horse racing track in West Virginia. But the president of the county commission has since changed her mind.

Since the controversial slots were installed in 1997, millions have visited the racetrack in the state’s Eastern Panhandle, and an industry almost left for dead is thriving again, racing officials say.

“It has made an enormous impact on us financially,” Tabb said.

Revenue from the machines – now 90 percent of the track’s income – has boosted daily purses from $22,000 to $145,000 and funded track improvements. Three times as many people are filling the grandstands to watch races.

Top breeders and trainers are flocking to the state as well, forcing local horsemen to upgrade their stock or be edged out.

Jefferson County, where the racino is located and home to 44,000 people, has benefited from more than 2,500 jobs connected to the track, as well as a state-approved funding formula that funneled nearly $5 million in slots revenue to the area during the last fiscal year.

Penn National Gaming Inc., which owns the Charles Town track, has teamed up with Scarborough Downs to try to create a racino in southern Maine. The efforts are opposed by Shawn Scott and Capital Seven LLC, which has been granted a contract by the Bangor City Council to open a racino at the Bangor Raceway.

Maine voters approved slot machines at the state’s commercial tracks Nov. 4. Since local voters in Scarborough failed to approve the plan, Scarborough Downs has been scrambling to find another host community by Dec. 31. The new site has to be within five miles of the existing track.

As the cities of Saco and Westbrook prepare to hold Dec. 30 referendums on a racino, Penn National is pitching its West Virginia racino as a model operation during meetings with community groups and in radio advertisements.

At the same time, critics of Penn National are finding fault with the track. Maine Opportunities, which is financed by Capital Seven, is running radio ads blasting the Charles Town track for having more slot machines than there are people in the city it borders.

Penn National is countering criticism with a stack of letters from West Virginia officials who say slot machines have not caused problems such as increased crime, or cannibalized local restaurants and bars.

“Now, how do I say this and not sound like a toady of the track? They’ve been very good neighbors,” said Charles Town Police Chief Mike Aldridge, whose department bought two new police cruisers last year with slots revenue given to the city.

But others say the machines are a mixed blessing. Traffic congestion frustrates some locals. Others feel the state has become too dependent on slot machine earnings from the four racetracks that together have become the third-largest source of revenue in that state.

There are several striking differences between the West Virginia racino and the one proposed in Maine. For one, Charles Town is little more than an hour from the nation’s capital.

Charles Town has 3,500 slot machines. Penn National has proposed 1,500 at Scarborough Downs.

Despite the differences, the venture provides insight into what Mainers could expect if Penn National enters the racino business in this state.

Every day, buses from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania navigate the hilly terrain of Jefferson County to get to Charles Town Races and Slots. The track estimates that it gets 4 million visits each year – 95 percent of them from out-of-staters.

Desperate for tax relief, the West Virginia Legislature legalized 400 slot machines in 1994 at the state’s two dog tracks and two horse tracks. But it was up to residents in the different counties to decide whether to accept the machines.

Owners of the Charles Town track said installing slots was the only way to save the business, which was losing more than a $1 million a year as people began to wager bets on other sports.

But, like the residents of Scarborough, people in Jefferson County rejected the measure.

“It was almost like the Civil War,” said Mary Via, executive director of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce. “Brother against brother.”

The track’s owners closed the track for part of 1995. Then Penn National entered the picture, promising to buy the track if county residents approved the slots. The company pumped $524,000 into the campaign, outspending gambling opponents 100 to 1.

The referendum easily passed in November 1996, and two months later Penn National bought the track. The track unveiled its first 220 machines on Sept. 10, 1997.

Jefferson County, which received $2.8 million this last fiscal year, has used the slot revenues to fund its ambulance service and for capital improvements such as removing asbestos from the sheriff’s department.

More money than ever is expected this coming year. With the blessing of the lottery commission, Charles Town Races and Slots added 800 more machines last month, bringing the machine count to the current 3,500.

Gambling opponents say that the money generated by the slots has blinded public officials and most community members to their flaws.

Addiction to the slots is breaking up homes and causing bankruptcy among locals, said Michael Withem, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ranson, who vocally opposed the machines in the last referendum.

A few years ago, a manager and waitress at a restaurant across from the track gambled away $24,000 in nightly receipts on slots.

“The sad thing about legalized gambling is the people who get hurt the worst are usually the people who can afford it the least,” Withem said.