BY TOM SOMACH

The land of the Pennsylvania polka will now also be the land of Pennsylvania poker.

Gambling regulators in the State of Pennsylvania have approved new slot machines for the state’s new casinos that operate like table games and let gamblers play casino games like poker.

Pennsylvania still bans traditional table games like poker and blackjack that are run by a human dealer.

But a loophole in State law allows casinos to have gaming machines if the odds are random and one player’s decisions do not affect another player’s odds.

Slot machines fit that description, while traditional poker does not.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board last week approved the blackjack program on the electronic table game, which is made by Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master Inc.

Approval of the game’s other programs, including Three Card Poker and Ultimate Texas Hold ‘em, should happen quickly once Shuffle Master submits them, said Michael Cruz, the gaming board’s senior manager of gaming laboratory operations.

The game also recently gained approval in Nevada, and should be showing up soon at casinos in both states, although company officials would not disclose specific locations or the number of orders.

The Shuffle Master game essentially allows casinos in slots-only states like Pennsylvania and Delaware to circumvent state prohibitions on table games.

It may also appeal to full-service casinos as a cost-effective way of running a table where bets are capped for beginners or risk-averse players.

“It’s very early in a category that we ultimately expect will be of great importance to our industry,” said Mark L. Yoseloff, Shuffle Master’s chairman and CEO.

One of Pennsylvania’s four slots casinos, Philadelphia Park, in Bensalem, Pa., plans to install the Shuffle Master game if the gaming board approves the casino’s application to add 320 new games to the nearly 2,100 already there.

“We think that they will be very popular with those players who actually enjoy table games,” Philadelphia Park president Bob Green said.

Robert Soper, the president and chief executive of Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., said the company has no concrete plans to buy the games, but is very interested.

“It offers a new dynamic, a new form of entertainment,” Soper said.

West Virginia last month legalized both electronic and regular table games at its four slots-only parlors, if approved by local referendums.

Shuffle Master’s games arrived in Delaware’s three slots parlors last fall, and an Arkansas racetrack features electronic table games made by DigiDeal Corp. of Spokane Valley, Wash., which is also seeking approval in Pennsylvania.

Electronic table games have barely cracked the nation’s biggest casino markets, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, where table games are legal.

Including the software that allows it to play multiple games, Shuffle Master’s game costs $135,000–about 10 times as much as most other slot machines–although its five-player capacity counts as five slot machines.

Players sit in a half-circle in front of two 42-inch plasma television monitors, one of which shows the dealer and the other a tabletop view of the cards.

The players each have a console and take turns playing.

The machines can play a variety of card games, and the casinos can pick from a selection of video dealers.

Pennsylvania just legalized casinos, but up til now only slot machines, which includes video poker machines, were legal.

Approval of the “slot machines” which allow “poker” is seen as merely an intermediary step before full-scale casinos a la Vegas and A.C. eventually become legal in the Keystone State.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)