CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia officials know Ohio casinos won't be good for the Mountain State's budget, but they say it's too soon to put a dollar amount on the damage.

Ohio voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to allow casinos to be built in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo.  The move is expected to hit West Virginia's Northern Panhandle casinos -- Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort in Chester and Wheeling Island -- especially hard.

"We will see and feel an impact on our state revenues," West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave said. "This certainly isn't going to be immediate."

Ohioans make up about 45 percent of Mountaineer's and Wheeling Island's patrons combined, lottery officials said.

Representatives from those facilities did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Dan Adkins, vice president of Tyner & Hartman Inc., which owns Tri-State Casino & Resort, said he isn't worried the Ohio decision will hurt the Nitro track. 

"I'm not concerned at all about competition with Ohio," he said. "Where those casinos are located, I don't think it will have an impact."

Three of West Virginia's four racetracks offer table games. In December, Jefferson County voters are set to decide on table games for Charles Town Races and Slots.

Revenue from table games and slots at the four racetracks made up about 59 percent of the Lottery's $1.49 billion in gross sales for the fiscal year that ended last June 30, West Virginia Lottery spokeswoman Nancy Bulla said.

She emphasized that it is too soon to say how much business West Virginia could lose to Ohio.

"We understand it will have an impact in West Virginia, but to what degree, we don't know," she said. "Until Ohio has full implementation, we won't have data from which we can derive projections, realistic projections."

The developers who plan to build the Ohio casinos -- Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures partnership and Penn National Gaming Inc. -- hope the facilities will open sometime in 2012, said Bob Tenenbaum, spokesman for the pro-casino campaign Yes on Issue 3.

Ohio voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to allow casinos to be built in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo.  The move is expected to hit West Virginia's Northern Panhandle casinos -- Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort in Chester and Wheeling Island -- especially hard.

"We will see and feel an impact on our state revenues," West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave said. "This certainly isn't going to be immediate."

Ohioans make up about 45 percent of Mountaineer's and Wheeling Island's patrons combined, lottery officials said.

Representatives from those facilities did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Dan Adkins, vice president of Tyner & Hartman Inc., which owns Tri-State Casino & Resort, said he isn't worried the Ohio decision will hurt the Nitro track. 

"I'm not concerned at all about competition with Ohio," he said. "Where those casinos are located, I don't think it will have an impact."

Three of West Virginia's four racetracks offer table games. In December, Jefferson County voters are set to decide on table games for Charles Town Races and Slots.

Revenue from table games and slots at the four racetracks made up about 59 percent of the Lottery's $1.49 billion in gross sales for the fiscal year that ended last June 30, West Virginia Lottery spokeswoman Nancy Bulla said.

She emphasized that it is too soon to say how much business West Virginia could lose to Ohio.

"We understand it will have an impact in West Virginia, but to what degree, we don't know," she said. "Until Ohio has full implementation, we won't have data from which we can derive projections, realistic projections."

The developers who plan to build the Ohio casinos -- Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures partnership and Penn National Gaming Inc. -- hope the facilities will open sometime in 2012, said Bob Tenenbaum, spokesman for the pro-casino campaign Yes on Issue 3.

Lottery revenues make up about 12 percent of the revenues that West Virginia relies on for expenditures, state Department of Revenue officials said. By law, most of that money must be spent on specific programs, such as the Promise Scholarship and senior services.

When projecting revenue estimates, West Virginia budget officials have taken out-of-state casino competition into account, said Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow.

"Certainly we've been expecting competition from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland for a long time," Muchow said, "probably at least since 2004."

Maryland voters approved slot-machine gambling in November. Pennsylvania opened its first casino in 2006, and slots revenues are climbing there.

Both competition and the economy have hit West Virginia lottery revenue, Muchow said.

"Just due to the recession itself, people are involved in gaming less, particularly tourism gaming," Muchow said. "And that's a fact every place from New Jersey to Nevada."

Ohioans passed the casino proposal -- called Issue 3 -- with 53 percent of the vote, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's Web site. 

Penn National Gaming, which owns Charles Town Races and Slots, was the main backer of Issue 3, along with Rock Ventures. 

MTR Gaming Group Chairman Jeff Jacobs funded TruthPAC, which was set up to oppose Issue 3. MTR owns Mountaineer in Chester, along with Presque Isle Downs & Casino in Erie, Pa. and Scioto Downs in Columbus.

Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.