COLUMBUS — Bowling alley owner Joseph Poelking has modest hopes for the new Keno game that starts Monday, Aug. 4.

"It's providing another opportunity for our customers to have some fun," said Poelking, who owns five bowling alleys with his cousin, Michael Poelking. Four of their centers have Keno equipment installed and ready to go for the game's statewide kickoff on Monday.

The Ohio Lottery Commission is adding the game as a way to rake in $73 million a year in profits for Ohio schools. About 800 bars, restaurants and bowling alleys will begin offering Keno on Monday and about 2,000 by the end of December, according to lottery officials. Roughly 12,000 Class D liquor license holders are eligible to apply for Keno licensing.

So far, applicants include 50 in Montgomery, 13 in Greene, seven in Miami and eight in Warren counties, according to the Ohio Lottery Commission.

Lottery Sales Director Dan Metelsky said research shows the most likely Keno players are men, ages 35 to 50 who earn on average $50,000 a year. Although games run every four minutes between 11 a.m. and 1:44 a.m., peak playing time is expected to be between 4 and 7 p.m.

Poelking said he doesn't see Keno bringing in new business but perhaps his customers will stay a little longer to play the new game, along with billiards, bowling and other games.

Anti-gambling forces are fuming that Gov. Ted Strickland turned to Keno as a way to ease the state's budget troubles.

"For starters, it's not what the voters authorized in 1973 when they voted for the Ohio Lottery. The idea of electronic, digital keno parlors being established and sanctioned by the state was a preposterous notion in 1973," said David Zanotti, of the Ohio Roundtable, a suburban Cleveland public policy group opposed to gambling. "It's wrong. It's not really authorized by the voters of Ohio."