Pipes, rosebuds will stay at Gaming Today

Loyal Gaming Today readers may soon see some big changes in the pages of the 22-year-old weekly gaming tabloid.

Publisher Chuck Di Rocco is looking to expand the Las Vegas paper's coverage beyond racing, sports and the gaming industry, and plans a hard look at one of its most distinctive features: the picture of a bikini-clad woman featured on the back page each week.

"I know that times have changed," Di Rocco said. "I'm right at a crossroads with the girls on the back. I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't."

Di Rocco is considering a reader survey to decide whether to keep the bikini pictures.

While bikinis may be on their way out at Gaming Today, coverage of new topics like Las Vegas travel, real estate, restaurants and entertainment appear to be on their way in.

"We feel that there are other niches and values that people want," said Di Rocco.

But don't expect GT to abandon that which has made it a success: extensive coverage of racing and sports news, and a weekly column filled with inside rumors about the gaming industry.

"We feel that we really are a pipeline," said Di Rocco. "We have a niche and we want to serve that niche."

Di Rocco takes great pride in his paper's unique practice of publishing unattributed rumors and gossip, noting that most tidbits in his 'Heard on the Strip' column are dead-on.

"The mainstream press says, well, you've got to have attributions or you're not credible," said Di Rocco.

Years of experience in the gaming industry have given him an extensive network of industry contacts -- his famous "pipes" and "rosebuds" -- who know what they're talking about, but don't want to see their names in print, Di Rocco said.

"Have we mis-cued occasionally? Sure," he said.

But GT's right more often than it's wrong, Di Rocco said.

Some industry insiders may dispute that claim. But the publication appears to be well-read in the gaming industry.

"They are occasionally ... dead-on, before anyone else," said Sarah Ralston, spokeswoman for Circus Circus Enterprises.

But even if the accuracy is only "occasional," Gaming Today is still worth a regular read, Ralston said.

"It's worth-while, on the off chance that they're on, to give it 10 minutes each week," said Ralston.

Many other industry executives feel the same way, Ralston said.

"You see it around the desks here," she said. "It winds up in most offices here."

According to Gaming Today research, the tab's weekly circulation of 84,000 copies reaches 252,000 readers. Sixty percent of those readers are in Nevada and California; the rest in other gaming markets throughout the country. Di Rocco counts Wall Street financial analysts among his most loyal readers.

Di Rocco says very little of GT's circulation is unpaid. Even copies handed out for free in Vegas race books and hotel rooms have been purchased by the casinos, Di Rocco said. The paper is mailed to 10,000 subscribers weekly.

Gaming Today has not always reached gaming industry insiders and analysts, and it has not always been called Gaming Today. Di Rocco, 63, founded the paper as Sports Form in 1976.

But Sports Form was not Di Rocco's first foray into journalism. A graduate of Penn State University, Di Rocco spent time as a desk reporter at the Norristown, Pa., Times-Herald, and then the afternoon Philadelphia Bulletin.

One day, the Bulletin's racing writer called in sick and Di Rocco was sent to cover the tracks. He immediately took to racing, and quit the Bulletin a year later to work in marketing for a variety of tracks.

Di Rocco had visited Las Vegas many times, and was surprised to find no gaming publications. In 1976, after 10 years in the racing industry, Di Rocco decided to combine his passion -- horse racing -- with his background in newspapers, and he founded the Sports Form.

But Di Rocco wasn't ready to give up on the racing industry. In 1981, he founded what is believed to be the first disseminator service. Disseminators arrange telecasts from out-of-state race tracks to Nevada race books.

"I think we were the very first company to scramble and unscramble a signal on a daily basis," Di Rocco said.

But in 1991, facing a lawsuit charging that he'd overbilled Coast Resorts' Barbary Coast and Gold Coast race books, and a Gaming Control Board overbilling complaint, Di Rocco sold the business to Las Vegas Dissemination Co. for an undisclosed amount.

Di Rocco was fined $250,000 by the board, and settled the Coast Resorts lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. In neither case did Di Rocco admit wrongdoing. He sold the dissemination business as a way of "getting the hell out of these stressful conditions," Di Rocco told the Sun in 1991.

Out of the dissemination business, Di Rocco refocused his attention on Sports Form, which had "limped along" through the 1980s, he said.

"In about '93 I really dug in again," Di Rocco said.

He expanded the paper's coverage beyond sports to include gaming industry news, and changed its name to Gaming Today. The move was a big hit, helping the tab penetrate executive offices and Wall Street.

"By focusing on the trade and giving them those fresh doughnuts every week, we get a great following of CEO's," said Di Rocco.

He says he exercises some caution about the sources he uses in 'Heard on the Strip.' In most cases, information from disgruntled employees is out.

But Di Rocco will never hang up on anyone.

"You never know what source has really got something to say," he said.

And that, he said, is the secret of GT's success: a network of industry sources who call Di Rocco with inside tips before he has to call them.

"That's the essence of GT," said Di Rocco. "News you can bet on. News before it's news."

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