By presidential word, big week for small businesses

This is, by proclamation of President Bush, Small Business Week. So stand by for:

Associated Builders & Contractors Inc. and others to appeal for greater respect for "the enormous contribution small businesses make to the nation" and urge lawmakers to cut the widening gap between how much more small business pays for health insurance than big firms.

Authors like Tom Gegax (The Big Book of Small Business) to talk about issues facing what he estimates to be 24.6 million U.S. small businesses.

Consultants like Gary Harpst, chief executive officer of Ohio-based Six Disciplines L.L.C. touting sustainable strategies for what he says is the greatest surge in small business in the nation's history: more than 650,000 new businesses start annually. Sadly, he said, the absence of a good strategy causes half those businesses to fail within the first year.

The National Small Business Association fighting what it says are attempts by the Internal Revenue Service to shift costly and unfriendly tax-law enforcement work to small businesses.

- Henry J. Holcomb

Eleven electronic table-game machines are scheduled to arrive at PhiladelphiaPark Casino tomorrow.

The games, unlike those in Atlantic City, will not have a person at the table dealing. Instead, there will be a "virtual dealer" - a video image of a human dealer who will talk to the players through a series of recordings. A spokeswoman for PhiladelphiaPark said the public can begin using the games May 5.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board approved the electronic table games late Thursday.

Each of the 11 machines arriving at the racetrack will contain five versions of blackjack. Pennsylvania legalized slot-machine-only gambling in summer 2004. Some say the virtual table games will enable Pennsylvania slots operators to tap into the lucrative table-game market.

"Certainly, while not replicating the live table-game experience found in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, it will be a sufficient enough table experience for some players, who otherwise would make the drive to Atlantic City," said Joe Weinert, senior vice president of Spectrum Gaming Group, which tracks the gambling industry. "But the fact is, these single-player games will be a turnoff to many even semi-serious table-game players because they are not competing with each other."

He said the virtual dealer is not dealing from the same stack of cards to all five players. Each player has his own deck or decks of cards. "It gives the appearance of being a communal table-game experience," Weinert said, "but the fact remains, it's a single-player game." - Suzette Parmley