For Ted Arneault, the plan has changed, but the partnership and the goal remain the same: his MTR Gaming and the Penguins will join forces to use slots to finance a new arena.

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Arneault, CEO of the parent company for Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort in nearby Chester, W.Va., said his group is working with the Penguins to obtain a slot license designated for Pittsburgh in the slots legislation passed this weekend.

Initially, when the two sides announced their joint venture a year ago, MTR Gaming aimed to use a proposed horse track and casino in Harrison to fund a 20-year bond and provide $60 million toward a new arena to which the Penguins pledged $47 million.

But Arneault said yesterday that he's now focusing on two ventures: a thoroughbred racetrack in Erie and a 5,000 slot machine parlor in the Pittsburgh area. Revenue from that venture could be used to help finance a new arena for the Penguins, he said.

The Penguins are expected to seek a license for a 5,000 slot machine casino. Under the new law, parlor owners are permitted to keep 48 percent of the revenues.

That suggests that the combined $107 million that the Penguins and Arneault pledged toward construction of a $250 million arena likely would change. But Arneault stopped short of saying both MTR Gaming and the Penguins could foot the entire arena bill -- leaving open the possibility of naming rights and various other potential donors.

"The way the law is structured, it is favorable in getting private money to build an arena," Arneault said. "I'm not saying the whole arena [can be funded that way], but you certainly can get a substantial amount of private money involved so you can be sure an arena gets built."

Arneault's group initially aimed to open a Keystone Downs track in Harrison and fund a 20-year bond issue for arena construction that would be paid for by slot revenue from the track.

Yesterday, barely two days after the slots bill passed the state House and Senate, Arneault said that he's now focusing only on the Penguins casino project and the construction of $80 million Presque Isle Downs in Erie, a thoroughbred-racing track where his group -- already licensed by the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission -- seems guaranteed a horse-track slots license and aims to initially install up to 2,000 slots.

"I like the west side of Pennsylvania," Arneault said.

But while the original plan anticipated that Arneault would pursue a combination casino-racetrack license, the slots legislation approved this week calls for one 5,000-slot parlor to be located in or around Downtown Pittsburgh.

"That's the same program we've been working on," Arneault said yesterday, after the Post-Gazette reported that the Penguins plan to pursue the state license for Pittsburgh's stand-alone slots parlor and use profits to fund a new home.

Penguins officials yesterday declined to publicly comment on the slots issue.

If the Penguins get the license, the most likely site for a new arena and parlor would be next door to 43-year-old Mellon Arena, on the parking lots above the facility.

"We're still studying that one," Arneault said of a possible Penguins location. The Penguins, however, laren't the only group vying for a slots license Downtown.

Station Square and the North Shore are other proposed sites for a stand-alone casino, and a developer has proposed building a racetrack/casino/hotel/retail complex on a Hays hillside overlooking Carson Street.

Under the law, signed yesterday morning by Gov. Ed Rendell, a principal owner of one slots parlor can own up to 33 percent of a second, likely forcing MTR Gaming -- with its Presque Isle Downs license -- into a minority-ownership role with the Penguins.

MTR Gaming earned $74.5 million in the first quarter of 2004, a 19 percent increase over last year, when it made $288 million. In addition to West Virginia, where it turned failing Waterford Park into the Mountaineer conglomerate known in the business as a "racino," the corporation also has a horse track in Ohio, a casino in North Las Vegas, a part of the recently resold Binion's Horseshoe Casino on Las Vegas' Strip, the license for the Erie track and an application for a track and card room in Minneapolis.

Arneault and Penguins owner-player Mario Lemieux have become friends since their two businesses came together almost four years ago. Arneault's Mountaineer became a sponsor of Lemieux's celebrity invitational golf tournament and teamed with the Penguins in a variety of other promotions and causes. The two men even have been known to jet to Las Vegas together.

"I feel really strong about the partnership," Arneault said.

At his golf tournament June 10, in his first public comments in seven months, Lemieux looked toward a future with slots:

"We just have to wait and see what happens at the end of the month [when the Legislature was to vote on the issue]. If it passes, I'm sure the next day I'm going to get a call from Ted and try to put something together. Ted is a good friend of mine. Ted has been a good friend of the franchise and the city. He wants what's best for the city as well. There might be a chance for us to partner with a guy like Ted and make sure the arena is built and that the team stays here."

Arneault echoed that theme yesterday.

A new arena financed by mostly private money, he said, "is what's good for the city, for the state, for the whole area. . . . We think we've got a good start with this program we've been working on."

Seven or eight of the approved casinos will be at racetracks, including The Meadows in Washington County and another one to be selected from a pool of harness-track applicants from Beaver, Washington and Lawrence counties. Altogether, there will be no more than 12 large casinos, each with up to 5,000 slot machines and the two resorts with 500 apiece.

A seven-member Gaming Control Board is expected to be named within 60 days and soon after begin a one-year process toward awarding licenses.