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FRANKFORT (AP) - Casinos could be built in Kentucky under a proposed constitutional amendment that cleared its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday after being modified to appease reluctant lawmakers.

The Senate State and Local Government Committee voted 7-4 to send the initiative to the full Senate for consideration. If it passes there, it would then go to the House.

Republican state Sen. Damon Thayer of Georgetown, a horse industry consultant who is sponsoring the legislation, made some last minute changes so that the proposal no longer requires up to five of the proposed casinos to be built at race tracks. New language allows up to seven casinos in the state with no assurance that they would be built at horse tracks.

Some lawmakers had objected to a constitutional guarantee that horse tracks would get casinos, arguing that it no specific industry should be written into the state's Constitution.

Gov. Steve Beshear made a personal appeal to committee members to approve the measure. He has been pressing lawmakers for five years to approve the constitutional amendment that would allow Kentuckians to wager on more than the horse races that have been a longstanding tradition in the Bible-belt state.

If the constitutional amendment passes in the General Assembly, it would be placed on the November ballot for voters to ratify or reject.

Beshear said Kentucky is now losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year to neighboring states that already have casinos. He said Kentucky needs to legalize casinos so that that money can be kept in the state.

"This issue has been on the table for almost 20 years," Beshear said Wednesday. "We've hemmed and we've hawed as state around us pressed forward.

Catholic bishops and Baptist pastors have issued stern warnings about the potential consequences of legalizing casinos.

"With their flashing lights, free-flowing alcoholic drinks, all-night hours and generally intoxicating atmosphere, casinos are more likely than other gambling options to lead to bad decisions and catastrophic losses for patrons, particularly those prone to problem or compulsive gambling," said the Rev. Patrick Delahanty, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.

Delahanty sent a letter to all state senators on behalf of Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Bishop Roger J. Foys of Covington, Bishop Ronald W. Gainer of Lexington and Bishop William F. Medley of Owensboro.

Gambling opponents, including the Kentucky Council of Churches and the Kentucky Baptist Convention, have been working feverishly to try to defeat Beshear's proposal for a constitutional amendment.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)