I read an interesting article about the rise of Hamas to power and the dim prospects for the once-booming Jericho casino, and thought about writing an extended piece for the LVBP considering the idea that casinos need liberal democracy to survive (that’s a small “l” and small “d”–I don’t want this to degenerate into partisan sniping). I’m not totally convinced, since many authoritiarian regimes throughout history have at least tolerated casinos, and today even North Korea has a casino.

So it was with a bit of interest that I fell across the following paragraph in Sergei Kapitsa’s discussion of liberalism (again, small “l”) and Russia’s declining population:

Solzhenitsyn’s suggestion is crude, but right in a fundamental sense. Our public thought is fragmented, and the country’s intelligentsia, who are partly responsible for tending to society’s values and goals, are behaving in often-destructive ways. The live-for-the-moment mentality of hedonism and greed that they have encouraged is embodied in Moscow’s casinos, of which there are more than in the rest of Europe or, for that matter, Las Vegas.

Russia’s Population Implosion

So do political and cultural freedoms lead inexorably to people spending their time in casinos instead of procreating to perpetuate the motherland (or homeland)? I’m painting with a broad brush here, but it’s a question that deserves some thought. Is the growth of casinos here in the United States a symptom of some underlying societal dysfunction, or just people being more honest about how they like to spend their free time? Cultural pathology or just changing tastes?

If I had the funding, I would seriously consider hosting a debate on this topic at the Center for Gaming Research.

Great news for British proponents of gaming education yesterday, as the United Kingdom’s first school dedicated to teaching casino operations opened. From the BBC:

The UK’s first gaming academy, to teach trainee croupiers the tricks of the trade, was officially opened in Lancashire on Wednesday.

Blackpool and The Fylde College has built its own training casino in the resort, earmarked to benefit from the government’s gambling law reforms.

Courses ranging from GCSE to foundation courses for degrees will be available to students aged over 18.

Students will learn skills such as operating a roulette wheel and table.

Some will train as super croupiers and others as slot machine engineers.

The project has been backed by gaming company Gala Casinos.

Casino college’s official opening

While this is no Centre for Gambling Mania, it’s yet another place that I’d like to give a guest lecture at.

If you are curious, I’ve got a new article in today’s Las Vegas Business Press. The gist of it is that Sports leagues can no longer stick their heads in the sand. Here’s a sneak peek:

Illegal sports betting is the dirty big secret of modern college and professional sports. League representatives talk tough — get them in front of a congressional hearing and they will bluster on about how their athletes must refrain from associating with “gamblers” lest the integrity of their game be called into question.

The baleful influence of professional gamblers on sports in the past cannot be overstated. In the late-19th and early-20th century, bookmakers and big bettors exercised such power over the results that the nation’s two most popular sports, baseball and horseracing, were nearly driven to extinction by public disgust.

So it makes sense for sports leagues to be on guard for collusion between gambling interests and players. But talk of “associating with gamblers” seems kind of Runyonesque. Sure, players probably should steer clear of characters like “Harry the Horse” and Sky Masterson, but it is probably impossible to avoid gamblers completely these days. More than 54 million Americans visit casinos each year, and the number of lottery and bingo players can only be guessed at. The majority of Americans are gamblers.

Part of the annual Super Bowl news cycle focuses on the Jekyll and Hyde world of sports betting: the shining “super books” of the big Strip casinos contrast well with the murky milieu of illegal bookies. Recently, Internet sports books — illegal in the U.S. but lawful elsewhere — have complicated the picture.
[Read more]

Thanks to the fact that I get the Vegas Resource newsletter, I got a very helpful email this weekend. It’s more than a source for coupons and 2-for-1 offers, with information on show openings and closings, and all other cool things.

This week’s newsletter reminded me that players can get annual win/loss statements from casinos where they have player cards. You can find out what your total net win or loss is for table games and slots. It’s got obvious utility for tax reasons. I’m going to track down a sample statement to show the kind of info they include–I think it would be interesting to see. If you want to send me yours, I’d be happy to post it, but please eliminate all identifying info BEFORE sending it.

I didn’t look at all the casinos’ online statement request forms, but almost all of them called it a “win-loss statement.” I expected this from many of the locals casinos–I mean, they know they’re not fooling anyone–but was a little surprised that Harrah’s, for all of their talk of incentivizing and whatnot, couldn’t come up with anything more jargony. MGM Mirage opted for the more neutral “tax information statement,” which was about as good as it got.

As I’ve often said, so much of gambling’s perception is based on semantics. Annual gaming revenue, for example, is a polite way of saying “how much money gamblers lost this year.”

So I’m a bit mystified that, for something that cuts to the quick like a “win/loss statement,” no one has developed a more palatable phraseology. As it is, I guess that most people open the statement and confront the cold truth that they have had a net loss of money.

I’ve got a small request–rack your brains, and see if you can come up with an upbeat euphemism for “win-loss statement” that would do any marketing department proud. Maybe someone in the industry who reads this will pick up on it, and you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing your suggestion become an industry standard.

The nation of Antigua looks askance at American prohibitions on Internet gaming. Actually that’s a bit of an understatement, as they have taken the US to WTO dispute resolution over the issue. As you can imagine, the country is not happy about a pending prohibition bill before Congress.

Here’s a press release I got in my inbox this morning, detailing the island nation’s protest:

ANTIGUA PROTESTS ANTI-GAMBLING LEGISLATION

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda has sent a letter (available upon request) to Rob Portman, the United States Trade Representative, in response to recent legislation introduced in the United States Congress regarding Internet gambling. In 2005, Antigua won a case against the United States in the World Trade Organization over the US prohibition on Internet gambling services offered to American consumers from Antigua, and under WTO procedures the United States was given until 3 April 2006 to bring its laws into compliance with the WTO decision.

However, the only legislation introduced into the Congress to date have
been bills sponsored by Congressmen Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and Bob Goodlatte
(R-Virginia), both of which seek to impose further restrictions on Internet gambling. In his letter of 16 February 2006 to Ambassador Portman, the Antiguan Ambassador to the WTO Dr. John W. Ashe notes that both pieces of legislation are in a number of respects directly contrary to the ruling of the WTO in the gambling dispute.

“As of today,” noted Ambassador Ashe, “with less than two months remaining on an 11 month and two week compliance period, to our knowledge no legislation has been introduced into the Congress that would seek to bring the United States into compliance with the [WTO] recommendations. Further, your government has given no indication to Antigua and Barbuda as to how the United States intends to effect such compliance. The only legislative efforts so far, the Goodlatte Bill and the Leach Bill, are baldly contrary to the rulings and recommendations of the [WTO]. We can only assume that this legislation was neither sponsored by nor enjoys the support of the USTR and the current American administration.”

Mark Mendel, lead counsel representing Antigua in the WTO case, observed that the exceptions to the Internet gambling prohibition contained in both of the bills highlight the discriminatory trade effect of the United States prohibition on the cross-border provision of gambling and betting services into the US. “By creating carve-outs for certain domestic remote gambling opportunities, including in particular wholly-intrastate remote gambling, both of these pieces of legislation fly directly in the face of the WTO ruling. The economic basis of the US restrictions simply cannot be more obvious.”

Ambassador Ashe further expressed his country’s commitment to the case, noting “Antigua and Barbuda stand prepared to ensure that our people reap the benefits of this historic decision. We will use every avenue open to us at the WTO and otherwise to see that the United States complies with the decision in a timely and comprehensive manner. As always however, we encourage the United States government to engage with Antigua and Barbuda directly to craft a workable solution to our dispute that addresses the concerns of both nations.”

It’s funny that a lottery company can get a well-placed lobbyist to scuttle a ban on Internet gaming, but a sovereign nation, armed with a favorable decision from an international trade organization, has to send open letters to the US Trade Representative in an effort to stand up for what they believe is right. Politics.

If you’re curious about the whole WTO/US trade dispute, or why the federal government is currently using a law passed in 1961 to restrict Internet gaming, check out Cutting the Wire, my book on the topic.