Monday, April 19, 2004 | 10:45 a.m.
Critics say last week's double-or-nothing gamble by Londoner Ashley Revell at the Plaza hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas sent the wrong message about responsible gambling.
Revell put up his life's worth of $135,300 and bet on red at the roulette table as a British film crew recorded the event.
He won when the ball dropped into the seven slot, a red number.
Revell tipped the dealer $600 and walked away with $270,000, seemingly a win-win for gambler and casino, based upon the wager's worldwide publicity.
In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Las Vegas Sun, reported Friday that some industry insiders think that taking the wager was a mistake.
Revell had approached Caesars Entertainment Inc. with the idea of making the bet at one of its properties but the company rejected it, company spokesman Robert Stewart said.
"That was a bet that we decided we did not want to take," he said.
Harrah's Entertainment Inc. wasn't approached with the proposal but "had (Revell) done so we would not even have come close to participating in this," spokesman Gary Thompson said.
"Our (Chairman) Phil Satre has said for years that if you're gambling for the wrong reasons we don't want your business."
"We think this is irresponsible behavior," Thompson said. "Gambling is not a way to solve financial problems. It never has been and never will be. It should be entertainment and nothing more than that."
MGM MIRAGE spokesman Alan Feldman also said the Plaza made a mistake by allowing the bet.
"There are times when promotion-minded people have ideas that would be better if they were turned down," Feldman said. "To knowingly take a bet from a person betting his entire net worth, even as a publicity stunt, isn't the right message for our business."
"Our customers take an incredibly small percentage of their net worth and they play with it," Feldman said. "We don't want to say to people: 'Bring your last penny to Vegas and bet it.' It's just the wrong message."
Phil Flaherty, chief operating officer of Plaza owner Barrick Gaming, said such criticism is merely a case of sour grapes and that if the opportunity arose, he'd take the bet again.
"I guarantee you, (other properties) wish they'd taken the bet," Flaherty said.
"Usually when one property gets a lot of good publicity, the others complain," he said. "The only people who lost the other night are the guys who wouldn't take the bet."
Allowing the bet was a no-brainer once property executives were assured that they wouldn't be violating state gaming rules or the federal Wire Act, he said.
"I couldn't buy the incredible publicity we received," he said. "All of ther morning shows, all of the news networks, in the U.S. and all over Europe, were all over this story. We got more press coverage than most recent championship prize fights. At the end of the day, it's a good (public relations) move for us."
But he also said that the particular circumstances of the bet made it one he was willing to consider.
"If he'd lost the bet, he'd probably recoup the money he lost plus a million more from the publicity and the book and movie rights," Flaherty said. "We always said we'd never condone this if it weren't part of the reality TV show. If he were just some guy off the street who said he wanted to wager his life savings on one bet, we'd say 'No way!' "
The British Sky One television network anticipates packaging the event into a short reality show series called "Double or Nothing," according to the Reuters news agency.
Revell's backup plan, if he had lost, was unclear to observers.
Flaherty said the property didn't check to see whether Revell had in fact sold all of his possessions and was wagering his entire net worth.
"I knew even if I lost I'd always have a home to go to," he told the Reuters news agency, referring to his parents.
Revell's father told Reuters that his son "shouldn't have done it."
"I tell my kids they shouldn't gamble," the elder Revell said. "I've got four others and they're all going to want to go the same way."
Carol O'Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council for Problem Gambling, found the stunt "a little disconcerting."
"Potentially watching someone destroying themselves without a known backup plan ... could have been incredibly horrifying," she said.
The bet didn't appear to fit the typical categories of gamblers -- either bets made by gambling addicts or social gamblers, she said.
"It leaves you feeling uncomfortable. Is this some new risk-taking trend that we're going to have to deal with?" she said. "What I do hope is that it's not going to spawn some unrealistic, irrational trend, that people think it is possible to double their net worth."
Robert Hunter, a treatment specialist and co-founder of the nonprofit Problem Gambling Center in Las Vegas, said he wasn't personally offended by the stunt and that casinos have staged publicity bets to attract business "since I was a kid."
But reports of the wager should be balanced with the fact that "for some people this is not a joke."
"My patients are going to be gambling regardless of what they hear on T.V.," he said. "But when our patients bet their life savings, they don't get to go on talk shows the next day."
State Gaming Control Board Enforcement Division Chief Keith Copher said the Plaza took adequate precautions to make sure the bet didn't violate the Wire Act.
The Control Board was concerned that plans to broadcast the wager live on the Internet would violate the act, which prohibits the Internet transmission of sports bets and betting information.
The Wire Act prohibits the interstate transmission of sports or horse-race bets or betting information, and federal officials believe the 1961 law also prohibits the transmission of wagering information.
Because at least a couple of Internet casinos were accepting bets on whether Revell would win or lose his bet, a live broadcast of the roulette wheel spinning could have violated the act.
The Plaza made sure the bet was taped and not broadcast live, both Flaherty and Copher said.
The Control Board's concern about the stunt's violating the Wire Act if broadcast live is the same concern that caused the Hard Rock Hotel to pass on the big wager, Hard Rock Hotel Chief Financial Officer Jim Bowen said.
Bowen said the property would have allowed the bet to made at the Hard Rock, but was unable to successfully negotiate guarantees with the the producers of the European reality TV show that the wager wouldn't be broadcast live.
Bowen said the TV show's producers said Revell had passed a battery of psychological exams, but said the Paradise Road boutique casino would have required the bettor to sign a waiver acknowledging that he received and understood information about problem gambling.
archive
