If you like FirstEnergy, American Electric Power and Dayton Power & Light, you'll love State Issue 3. The casino amendment Penn National Gaming and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert slapped onto November's statewide ballot would entrench another monopoly in Ohio -- this one statewide, on steroids.

A tax on "gross casino revenue" (the net amount gambled at four proposed casinos) would produce no real money to balance Ohio's state budget. And a separate "upfront license fee" for the casinos, payable to the state, would equal about 0.4 percent of Ohio's budget.

Given posted Web comments, a few readers must think Issue 3 is a brawl between downstate "hillbillies," bossed by snake-handling preachers, and big-city Ohio.

Not true. The Issue 3 fight is an assault on the public interest by monopolists who want to make the Ohio Constitution a chain-link fence around enormous, guaranteed profits.

Issue 3 also would let Ohio casinos offer any table gaming now allowed -- or ever allowed in the future -- by Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That is, four other states would write laws that also applied in Ohio.

And there's a heads they win, tails you lose feature: If Indiana, etc., banned any table-gaming that had previously been allowed, such a ban wouldn't apply in Ohio. That is, gaming expansions, as decided in Indianapolis, Lansing, Harrisburg and Charleston, would be A-OK at Ohio casinos. But second thoughts? Not allowed.

The last-ditch pitch for Issue 3 is that it would be a nontax bonanza for Ohio's government piggybanks, wouldn't it? No. If Issue 3 passes, Penn National and Gilbert would keep 67 percent of "gross casino revenues," measured, no doubt, by . . . flexible . . . bookkeeping. The remaining 33 percent would be divvied up according to rules Penn National and Gilbert wrote.

A legally required state budget office estimate determined that that 33 percent nibble could total $634 million a year. Of that amount, given the Penn National-Gilbert formula:

• $28.56 per capita would go to each county, with half of many counties' shares going to a county's biggest city. That would mean Cuyahoga County and Cleveland could each get -- once a year -- $18 million. Meanwhile, Franklin County and Columbus could annually get $16 million each; Dayton and Montgomery County, $7.6 million each.

• $125.24 per pupil per year (about 69 cents a school day) would go to Ohio public schools -- about $6 million a year to Cleveland Municipal schools; about $6.5 million a year to Columbus City Schools; about $1.8 million a year to Dayton schools. Just for April, May and June alone, Penn National reported net revenues of $580.1 million.

• Casino "host" cities -- Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo -- would split $32 million.

• About $19 million would go to a (new) Casino Control Commission -- patronage for politicians' pals.

• The Ohio Racing Commission would get about $19 million a year to "support purses . . . breeding and (track) operations" -- that is, to subsidize what's left of Ohio horse racing.

• About $13 million would go to a "state law-enforcement training fund" (in case you wondered why some cops like Issue 3 -- for that, plus potential private-duty "security" work at casinos).

• And a "problem gambling and addictions fund" would get $13 million.

Do the math: Issue 3 is a terrible deal for taxpayers -- but the deal of a lifetime for a greedy, grasping lobby.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.

tsuddes@gmail.com