Columnist Jeff German: Gambling opponents claiming victory

THE NATIONAL Gambling Impact Study Commission still is struggling to complete its report by June 18, but the anti-gaming forces already are claiming victory.

"We've dictated the terms of the battle," says Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "It was always going to be a look at the casino industry's product, and that's exactly what happened.

"They sat there and watched their own product meeting after meeting get trampled."

Grey, an Illinois minister leading a nationwide campaign to stop the spread of gambling, says Las Vegans may be doing themselves a service by backing criminal defense attorney Oscar Goodman for mayor.

"Once the commission's report comes out, they're going to need a good defense lawyer," he says. "We're going to airdrop the report to our soldiers in place throughout the country. It's going to be used everywhere there's a fight."

American Gaming Association President Frank Fahrenkopf, the industry's chief spokesman in Washington, scoffs at Grey's words.

"Tom Grey should pay a little more attention to the truth," says Fahrenkopf who insists the industry is going to fare well when the report comes out. "The critics can stand back and throw rocks, but nothing's ever going to satisfy them."

Still, even among gambling's allies on the commission, there are concerns the industry could get clobbered next month. Most of those concerns are centered around a 5-4 commission vote in Washington late last month to recommend in the report that communities across the country consider a moratorium on the expansion of gambling.

The vote demonstrated to many observers that the anti-gambling forces have a majority on the panel. Some of the pro-gaming commissioners, who are considering writing a minority report, blame industry leaders for blowing a chance to demonstrate to the middle-ground commissioners that gaming is serious about addressing its social ills.

Until Fahrenkopf took the reins of the gaming association in July 1995, as momentum was gaining in Congress to create the federal commission, the industry wasn't even organized on a national level. Since then, it has undertaken a high-profile campaign to deal with problem gamblers and has been commended for its efforts.

But one gaming ally on the panel describes those efforts as "too little, too late." Some even are wondering what happened to gaming's so-called political clout on Capitol Hill.

The industry, for example, spent a lot of money cultivating ties with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, a state that has legalized gambling. But Lott's appointment to the nine-member panel, Dr. Paul Moore, voted for the moratorium last month.

Grey says the moratorium vote shows his group has been right all along about the dangers of gambling.

"When all was said and done, the five people who did not have a self-interest voted against the product," he says.

Fahrenkopf insists it's too early to make that claim. He says there will be more votes this week in Washington to judge which direction the panel is headed.

But one of Fahrenkopf's colleagues, Wayne Mehl, Washington lobbyist for the Nevada Resort Association, says he's worried about those votes.

Commissioner James Dobson of Colorado, a leading national gaming critic, will be pushing 72 recommendations that hit the industry hard.

Dobson, for example, wants the commission to recommend placing warning labels on all gambling devices, banning sports betting on college athletics and encouraging states to prohibit casinos from making campaign contributions.

He also wants the commission to recommend removing ATM machines from gaming establishments.

"He's got a list of recommendations, some of which are silly and stupid, but some of which are not silly and stupid that he'll be contesting very vigorously," Mehl says. "The only way we can judge so far how things could end up is that 5-4 vote."

To Grey, however, the battle is over.

"When that vote came back 5-4 on the moratorium," he says, "I just said, 'Game, set and match.' "

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