Small slot operators not opposed to problem gambling training

Operators of Nevada's small gambling establishments aren't overly concerned about new problem gambling rules that now target them as well as big casinos.

"I don't think it's that big a deal," said Calvin "Butch" Jensen, owner of T-Bird Lounges on East Tropicana and Eastern avenues. "I'm sure it will cost time and money, but if it has to be done, it has to be done."

"I think it has merit, personally," said Jack Parker, part-owner of four Village Shoppes convenience stores around town.

The Nevada Gaming Commission on Tuesday rejected a Gaming Control Board proposal that would have required establishments operating under nonrestricted gaming licenses to give their employees basic problem gambling awareness training. Establishments operating under restricted licenses would have been exempt from the requirement.

The commission instructed board attorneys to re-draft the proposed regulations to require all gaming licensees, restricted and nonrestricted, to put employees through problem gambling training programs.

Larger resort casinos, slot route operators and some smaller neighborhood casinos operate under nonrestricted gaming licenses, which allow them to operate unlimited numbers of machines and table games. Most smaller taverns, grocery and convenience stores operate under restricted gaming licenses, which limit them to a specified number of gaming machines, and do not allow table games.

Steve DuCharme, chairman of the Gaming Control Board, estimates there are 1,000 establishments in Nevada operating under restricted gaming licenses.

Under proposed new regulations slated to be approved Monday, all state gaming establishments will be required to post problem gambling hotline numbers near their machines and to offer brochures explaining where problem gamblers can turn for help.

Casinos will also be required to let patrons "self-limit" their access to check cashing privileges, casino credit and direct mail promotional programs.

The regulations were drafted by the Gaming Control Board, and were originally introduced under the direction of Bill Bible, the board's former chairman. DuCharme said the board tried to exclude restricted licensees from the training requirement out of concerns that it would place a financial burden on them.

"We didn't know if, in the rural locations, they would have the ability to develop these training programs effectively and make them work," said DuCharme. "We were trying to capture the big guys who would be able to afford it."

But though the Nevada Resort Association and the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling are developing a comprehensive two-hour employee training program, both DuCharme and Gaming Commission Chairman Bill Curran have noted that the regulation actually does not require operators to do much more than show employees where the toll-free hotline number and problem gambling brochures are located.

That kind of training is easy to implement, say small establishment operators.

"We would train people on that in our normal training session," said the Village Shoppe's Parker. "I don't see that as a problem."

"I think any operator should be interested in helping anybody with a problem," said Tom Wiesner, owner of seven Big Dogs and Little Dogs taverns around Las Vegas.

Like Village Shoppes, Big Dogs and Little Dogs will simply add problem gambling awareness training to current employee training programs.

"There's nothing wrong with adding an issue about gaming," said Wiesner. "We talk about eating and drinking to excess."

But neither gaming regulators nor operators believe employees should actively intervene with problem gamblers. A recent change in the proposed problem gambling regulation specifies that gaming employees will not be required to identify problem gamblers.

"I don't think that's my problem," said T-Bird's Jensen, when asked whether he instructs employees to talk to patrons who seem to have a gambling disorder.

Parker said there is only so much an operator can do. If an employee suggests a gambler might be overdoing it and that gambler tells the employee to mind his or her own business, there's not much else the employee can realistically do, he said.

Wiesner said his employees do confront people they identify as problem gamblers, but that those interventions don't consist of much more than telling them where they can turn for help.

Like anything else, problem gambling is simply a question of excess, Wiesner said.

"We don't think there's anything wrong with eating, drinking and gambling," just eating, drinking and gambling to excess, said Wiesner.

archive