How provocative a report coming from panel?

Perhaps states should not make any money from the lottery, Leone suggested to fellow members of a federal panel studying gambling. Rather, states could pool people's bets, invest the entire pot for a year, then divide the proceeds in a drawing.

His "savings lottery" idea died fast, but Leone had made his point. The former New Jersey state treasurer has become the resident provocateur on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, arguing for a report that is blunt, controversial, even outlandish in its findings.

"My fear is that ... we'll come up with something relatively small-bore that is mostly an outline or an encyclopedia of gambling in the United States in 1999," Leone said.

"I would rather see us speak out rather forcefully on how troubled we are by the increasing invasion of gambling into neighborhoods and into homes and into families."

At the other end of the argument, advocating a more encyclopedic approach, is John Wilhelm, general president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union.

The report will be "useless and irrelevant" if it recommends legislative measures that will not be enacted or will do no good, he insisted.

"I think information has great power. I have a lot of confidence in the American people," Wilhelm said.

The two contrasting positions reflect the difficulty that the nine-member commission, which meets for two days this week, is having in making recommendations on national gambling policy.

The panel runs an ideological gamut from conservative activist James Dobson, who opposes gambling, to J. Terrence Lanni, who makes his living as chief executive officer of Las Vegas-based MGM Grand Inc.

But as the commission nears a June deadline for its report, the debate is defined more about activism versus restraint in the industry than it is simply about pro-gambling versus anti-gambling.

Best representing that divide are Leone and Wilhelm, with distinct views and backgrounds when it comes to gambling.

Wilhelm, appointed to the commission by House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., is president of a union that represents 75,000 casino employees. In a running joke, commission chairwoman Kay James keeps track of how much time goes by at each meeting before Wilhelm utters the word "jobs."

Leone, appointed by President Clinton, was state treasurer when New Jersey voters approved casino gambling for Atlantic City in 1976. Leone lobbied against legalized gambling even though the governor, Brendan Byrne, supported it.

Now the president of the Twentieth Century Fund, a public policy research institution, Leone admits he was wrong in his contention back then that organized crime would infiltrate casino operations. But his discomfort with government-sanctioned casinos and government-run lotteries remains.

Leone said he will continue to recommend controversial ideas for the commission's report.

"If we really decide not much is possible, then we'll fail, and we won't get much attention," he said. "I think this commission's obligation is to push people, to be considered far out and radical. If we're not, who's going to do it?"

The final report on the economic and social impacts of legalized gambling will go to Congress, the president, state governments and tribal governments.

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