AGA Brings Together Influential Audiences for First Time
With the goal of shaping gaming policy and perception among critical influencers from across the country in a way that’s never been done before, AGA convened congressional staff, media, academic experts and gaming executives in Washington, D.C. last week for our second annual Gaming Experts Forum. This increasingly popular event featured informed, in-depth conversations about the most critical issues we face — and an opportunity to inject gaming’s point of view into the dialogue.
Here is an overview of the Forum, including video highlights.
AGA’s Gaming Experts Forum
“PASPA is basically hanging by a thread and waiting for the ultimate knockout blow.”
“Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders, has been to Las Vegas half a dozen times in the last six, eight weeks. The Raiders are serious about it.”
“What Tribal casinos have been able to do is bring gaming to most of the country.”
After AGA Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Sara Rayme overviewed the industry’s campaign to reexamine the federal sports betting ban and announced that the U.S. Conference of Mayors had just passed a resolution pledging to work with AGA on this issue, two panels shed light on the subject.
The first featured sports betting practitioners who demystified sports betting by detailing how the legal, regulated market actually works. Veteran South Point Sports Book Director Jimmy Vaccaro explained how they prevent illicit activity: “If someone comes to the window and he wants to bet $15,000 on a game then we ask for some identification but then he pulls his money back because he doesn’t want to show his ID so we call surveillance and take a picture of him — we have more photos than Kodak.” Watch the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
The second panel on sports betting drilled down on the evolving views of gambling held by professional sports leagues, which once opposed gambling across the board. In the wake of the National Hockey League expanding to Las Vegas, ESPN Business Analyst and Sports Illustrated Writer Andrew Brandt called the move “a momentous inflection point in this discussion; it’s something that’s broken the ice — pardon the pun — and other leagues may or may not follow but it seems likely they will because these walls seem to be breaking down.” Watch (part 1 & part 2) the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
As views on sports betting continue to change, so does the Las Vegas Strip. “New York-New York, T-Mobile Arena, the new MGM theatre and the re-branded Monte Carlo — that all becomes the ‘neighborhood’ with the park being the conduit. It’s actually one of the first non-gaming venues on the strip with food and beverage experiences, outdoor art — it’s culture right there,” said MGM Resorts International’s Bev Jackson.
Kevin Bagger of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said while most people know that Las Vegas has changed dramatically, some don’t realize just how much of a “diversified entertainment experience” the city provides. Watch the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
Further, the Forum featured a robust discussion of what the 2016 election could bring for gaming, not just in the White House but in federal agencies and on Capitol Hill. “Whether it’s a Donald Trump presidency or a Hillary Clinton presidency, who would be appointed to those agencies — not just at the cabinet level but on down to the regulatory agency level is going to determine a lot in terms of public policy around gaming,” said Steven Light, professor of political science at the University of North Dakota. Watch the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
Light, his colleague, Dean Kathryn Rand of the University of North Dakota School of Law, and Lasell College Assistant Professor of Political Science Paul DeBole offered insights on gaming trends in Indian country, Massachusetts and elsewhere. “There’s something fundamentally wrong with the economic model of a business where 55 percent of the profit is siphoned off the top before you’ve paid an employee…I think we have to force our legislators to reexamine the nature of taxation,” said DeBole. Watch the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
Finally, in an engaging conversation of how gaming has emerged as a business to be covered by reporters like any other industry, Howard Stutz, former Las Vegas Review-Journal gaming reporter; Chris Sieroty, editor at Gambling Compliance; and Sean Murphy, Boston Globe gaming reporter, told tales of covering casinos and some of their best interviews with some of the biggest names in the industry. Watch the full discussion or the two-minute highlight video.
