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Nevada Regulators Consider Rules for Private Gaming

LAS VEGAS -- The Nevada Gaming Commission could vote today on a plan to create private gambling areas for thousands of bettors.

But a top casino industry regulator argues that an industry-sponsored version of the proposal waters down what Nevada legislators had in mind last year when they authorized regulators to set guidelines to decide who could frequent the elite areas.

"If they say, 'We want to expand this,' I would be very pleased and happy to develop legislation that would address that," said state Gaming Control Board member Bob Siller, "but I don't want a bait and switch between changing what the legislative intent was from the time the statute was passed by legislators to the drafting of the regulation."

State lawmakers OK'd creation of the segregated casino spaces to lure to the state many of the world's 100 to 200 whales, who are considered the biggest of all gamblers.

Industry executives argue that many of the $50,000- to $150,000-a-hand bettors are bypassing Nevada's casinos for the private gambling salons of Europe, Asia and tribal California and Connecticut casinos.

"I think it's difficult to measure, and it's been made significantly more difficult because of the Sept. 11 issue and people staying away (from Las Vegas and the United States) in large numbers now," said MGM Mirage Senior Vice President Alan Feldman.

Nevada law long required that public casino spaces remain just that - public.

Supporters of the private spaces argue that lost high-end business means reduced revenues for Nevada's casinos as well as state and local governments during a recessionary period when all three are scrambling for dollars.

Last month, members of the Nevada Gaming Control Board voted 3-0 to OK a preliminary plan that would limit the private areas to bettors who wager at least $500 a hand and carry a combination of credit lines and up-front deposits totaling $1 million.

The five-member Nevada Gaming Commission has final say on the issue and could accept or reject the control board's recommendation.

The lower threshold could open the rooms to thousands more gamblers, although control board members argue the rooms would still attract an elite betting class.

Meantime, the casino industry's Carson City lobbying arm, the Nevada Resort Association, is pushing to lower the limits to allow minimum bets of $500 a hand and credit line/front-money combinations of $500,000 - opening the private salons to many more.

"If you look at these individuals' wagering practices you're going to find their average wagers are going to be in excess of those we've talked about," said NRA President Bill Bible, whose organization represents Strip giants MGM Mirage and Park Place Entertainment, among others.

Bible served as the control board's chairman throughout most of the 1990s and was a strong advocate of the state's open gambling requirement.

"If the (63-member) Legislature had wanted a million-dollar credit line or $20,000 or $40,000 minimum wagers they would have put that in the law," he argued. "When looking at legislative intent you can go after any session ... and you could get 63 opinions on what they intended."

But the control board's Siller believes that intent was clear: Legalize the private gambling areas to lure the 100 to 200 privacy-conscious high rollers.

"What the casino industry has done now is taken current events and marketing issues, and wants to redefine, wants to broaden the interpretation of legislative intent," said Siller, who oversaw development of the regulation approved last month by the control board.

Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Peter Bernhard said Wednesday he did not know how he or his colleagues would vote on the proposals and declined to say whether he was leaning one way or the other.

"I'm looking forward to hearing any additional presentations to help us resolve any points of view," said the Las Vegas lawyer.

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