by John Pawlak, the U.S. Trotting Association

Columbus, OH — Cleveland.com, the online edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is reporting today that the Ohio Lottery Commission, as soon as this coming Monday, will promulgate rules for the installation of video lottery terminals (VLTs) at the state’s racetracks.

The site also reported that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is planning a legal strategy to elicit approval of those rules by the Ohio Supreme Court.

One year ago, Strickland issued an executive order to install VLTs at the tracks but was thwarted by a challenge from a conservative group, letohiovote.org, which was successful in petitioning the Ohio Supreme Court to order the issue put before voters.

Ohio’s voters then legalized casino gambling in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo last November, while letohiovote.org gathered enough signatures to put the VLT issue on this coming November’s ballot. The group recently dropped its effort to have the voters rule on the matter.

Strickland’s original plan called for 17,500 VLTs — 2,500 at each track — but that number and the rate at which the tracks would share in revenues may be adjusted, given the fact that casinos, by constitutional amendment passed by the vote of Ohioans last November, will pay much lower tax rates than had been proposed in the governor’s original VLT plan.