Ohioans finally approved a gambling proposal that favors, of course, the state's major cities, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.

It will be interesting to analyze the vote returns on a county-by-county basis when they're made official later this month, to see if the outcome is a victory swath that basically follows Interstate 71 and the Ohio Turnpike across the state.

We're sure it won't include Eastern Ohio, as voters here turned down the proposal handily.

The reasons are simple to understand. First, the proposal does indeed favor the major cities, assuming the casinos eventually are built.

Second, the casinos will be a detriment to the area, which already benefits from casino traffic out of the Cleveland area which provides employment at the Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort at Chester.

Factor in competition from Pennsylvania, which doubtlessly will be moved rapidly off the fence now in favor of table games, and the issue becomes one not of fighting for tourist dollars but one of local casinos battling one another for local clientele, literally from Erie, Pa., to Cincinnati.

MTR, in issuing its third quarter results, said it must prepare for the new competition, which it anticipates will arise in about four years. MTR owns not only Mountaineer but also Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Pa., and the Scioto Downs track in Columbus. MTR spent $3.7 million in the fight against the latest Ohio gambling proposal, and it has seen a drop in revenue at Mountaineer following the opening of the Rivers Casino in downtown Pittsburgh during the third quarter.

The question we have remains this: Gov. Ted Strickland and the state's budgeteers estimate there's $1 billion available to the tax coffers of Ohio when the table games are active.

We wonder. If a commodity like gambling stops being a novelty, a destination, when does it stop drawing new dollars and simply redistributing the existing pool of wealth, from the hands of wage earners and retirees to the hands of casino owners?

In other words, when there's a casino on every corner, Ohio, and West Virginia and Pennsylvania, will surely discover they're not a vacation and convention destination like Las Vegas and Atlantic City - both of which are struggling in the down economy.

We'll hold judgment, but suspect Ohio will suffer the social ills with little, if any, of the economic gains of gambling.