The day of reckoning has arrived for West Virginia's racetrack and gambling resorts. Their fate rests with the Legislature and governor, and it's not a pretty picture.

Competition soon will roll out in Pennsylvania, permitting vendors to operate as many as 61,000 video gambling machines. Ohio voters are scheduled to vote Nov. 7 on an initiative to allow racetracks to operate 35,000 slot machines. Can Maryland be far behind?

West Virginia's track owners want to be able to compete. They want to be able to ask local voters for permission to operate table games -- blackjack, roulette, craps, etc. They say such a change would allow them to protect their market share and preserve employment.

West Virginia politicians fear doing anything that suggests they support the expansion of gambling. Given the history of gambling in West Virginia, that is mind-numbing hypocrisy.

Let's review the facts:

In 1984, citizens voted to establish the West Virginia Lottery. It started with scratch-off tickets and then snowballed. In the early 1990s, legislators allowed West Virginia's four racetracks to operate video slot machines. The tracks and their machines have been wildly successful, enticing investment in the tracks and luring tens of thousands of out-of-state guests whose lost bets have benefited the state's public coffers.

In 2001, the Legislature joined newly elected Gov. Bob Wise in legalizing video poker machines in fraternal clubs and bars across the state. Some see them as a plague.

So let's not pretend we're opposed to gambling. Sadly, we're not. We have expanded gambling, and we blithely spend the proceeds. All told, state government realized $658.1 million in revenue from its Lottery enterprises in fiscal 2006, and 65 percent of that total came from the state's four racetracks.

That leads to some questions:

Are legislators prepared to raise taxes to offset the inevitable loss of revenue the tracks will experience when their customers migrate to Pennsylvania?

Are legislators prepared to slash government programs to reduce the state's dependency on gambling?

Are legislators willing to look track employees in the eye and tell them their jobs aren't important?

Will the governor step up and bring honesty and common sense to this debate?

We're long past the time for moralizing about gambling. The genie is out of the bottle, and we're addicted to the cash.

Let's make a deal: Cut back on the number of gambling outlets by phasing out local video lottery parlors and let the racetracks have their local options.