Supporters of slot machines at Bangor Raceway braced for a showdown in the Senate this week, readying a final effort to strip a newly proposed state tax from the bill they say could derail – or at least delay – the project.

“It’s trying to feed the tiger enough food so he won’t bite you in the rear end … so we can get this thing up and running,” Denise McNitt of the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association said of her group’s efforts to give the state enough slots revenue to cover its administrative costs while lowering the tax burden on the project.

McNitt’s comments came on the heels of an Appropriations Committee vote Monday to send the bill, LD 1820, back to the Senate with the new tax – a 1 percent levy on the amount wagered in the machines – intact.

The Senate, which already has given its conditional approval to the bill, most likely will take up the issue today.

The House already has given its final approval to the bill barring any changes.

The Appropriations Committee vote came despite intensified lobbying efforts to jettison the tax, expected to net the state upward of $8 million a year once a Bangor facility reaches its capacity of 1,500 slot machines.

The tax would be in addition to the 39 percent share of slots revenue after winnings are paid that the state already stands to receive under the bill. Only 3 percent would be devoted to administrative costs, with much of the rest going to the Fund for Healthy Maine or returned as purse supplements to horsemen.

Under a plan to be introduced today by McNitt’s group, the horsemen would return part of their share to the state for the first three years to help with startup costs. In turn, the state would remove the new tax, added in the late days of the session as a way to close a $500,000 shortfall in the state’s costs.

But now, with just days remaining in the session and little sentiment among lawmakers to tinker with the controversial bill, the horsemen’s efforts could be in vain.

“They’re being faced with the political reality that the amendment doesn’t have any wheels,” said Sen. Kenneth Gagnon, the Waterville Democrat who crafted much of LD 1820, a replacement for a citizen-initiated referendum initially allowing slots at the state’s harness racing tracks.

But Gagnon on Monday, unlike in previous interviews, did leave room for compromise on the tax issue.

“If they can sell it, there’s still time,” he said. “There’s just not much time for them to think about it.”

Officials with Penn National Gaming, the company poised to run the slots in Bangor, also tempered their comments, which had concentrated on scuttling the project altogether if the tax remained in effect.

“The ink is not dry yet,” said Penn spokesman Eric Schippers. “We have to see where we stand when this is all said and done.”

The debate over slots also intensified outside the State House this week with the appearance of a full-page ad in newspapers, including today’s Bangor Daily News, chiding state lawmakers for supporting the new tax.

Gov. John Baldacci’s spokesman Lee Umphrey took issue with the ad, noting a legislative committee added the new tax, not the governor, who is the main target of the advertisement. Baldacci, Umphrey said, has not taken a position on the tax, instead insisting only that the new slots industry cover state costs.