Bill Miller, president/CEO of the American Gaming Association, gives a State of the Industry address during the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in the Venetian Expo Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.
Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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When Bill Miller took over as president and CEO of the American Gaming Association in 2019, he could not have foreseen something as disruptive to the gaming industry as the coronavirus pandemic.
More than two years later, however, the industry is in the midst of a run of record revenues.
On the heels of the annual Global Gaming Expo (G2E) earlier this month in Las Vegas, Miller talked to the Sun about the pandemic recovery, the health of Las Vegas as a gaming and tourism destination, and the future of the gaming industry.
Not only in Las Vegas, but across the country, the gaming industry has continued to see record profits. According to the Ameican Gaming Association, August marked the 18th consecutive month with positive year-over-year commercial gaming revenue growth. Has this run surprised you?
Look, we’ve been through a lot. The pandemic was particularly devastating to the gaming industry. You had 989 casinos, commercial and tribal, all across the country that were shut down for months at a time. Then, as we began to reopen, what we saw was that there was an appetite to have fun. That’s reflected in the numbers. The market is strong.
Some people might say that the incredible numbers from 2021 make sense because of COVID and that may not be sustainable. Actually, 2022 has been better than 2021, so our view is that the industry is quite strong. That’s true for Las Vegas and Nevada and regionally around the country. In talking with gaming leaders, as I did at (G2E), all of them said they feel good about the foreseeable future.
Speaking specifically to Las Vegas, Harry Reid International Airport is expected to come close to a record number of passengers this year, and the region likely will welcome close to 40 million tourists in 2022. That’s all with international travel and convention business still lagging coming out of the pandemic. Does the Las Vegas revival surprise you?
No, it doesn’t. At G2E in 2021, we had 13,000 people. The two clear missing pieces to that show were international visitation and business travel. The resumption of international travel is clearly very important to Las Vegas, and we saw international travel at G2E en masse this year, which we hadn’t seen since 2019.
I talked to a number of regional operators who said the G2E 2021 show brought essential buyers only, but not necessarily our property presidents or other management types, which they would normally do. We significantly increased the number of business travelers to this year’s show.
Trade shows, conferences, they’re all resuming, though it’s happening slowly. Harry Reid International Airport had 4.6 million passengers in August, which was up 4% over 2019. I use that metric a lot to measure the economic situation in Las Vegas.
The topic of cashless options for casino play was big at this year’s G2E show. How do you view the progress of the cashless revolution in the casino world?
When I was a candidate for this job, and in my early days in this role, I often made the observation that the gaming industry was one of the last industries, along with garage sales and flea markets, that primarily dealt with cash.
That line would usually get a laugh or someone would say that I didn’t know what I was talking about, but my point was that the consumer is whom we should care about as a hospitality industry.
The consumer is increasingly becoming more digital as they transact. If we in the hospitality, travel and leisure space don’t attempt to accommodate the consumer in the way they want to transact, we’re going to lose that. I’ve been riding that horse since I got this job. I do think that COVID was a great accelerant to the industry moving forward in that regard.
It’s not to say that we’re necessarily looking for cashless casinos, but if the consumer has a preference, and we can’t provide that for them, that’s troublesome.
COVID, the handling of germs, all of that contributed to the increase in (cashless) options, but there’s a continued evolution among those in the industry, those in the regulatory space and those in the banking and payment networks space.
People realize that gaming is a large, mainstream industry, and they are seeing that mobility and digital transactions should be a part of it. I would say we’re seeing a much higher degree of awareness, acceptance and enthusiasm around cashless.
Coming out of the pandemic shutdown, we heard casino operators talk about how a younger customer base had started to frequent casino resorts. Are we still seeing that trend as we get further out from 2020?
The demographic coming into casinos has skewed younger. In part, that was because we were one of the few entertainment options that was available to people early on in the reopening phase. Importantly, what we offered that younger demographic was something that they may not have appreciated.
When we showed them the gaming, the restaurants, the entertainment, they really liked all that, and they’ve stayed with us.
Further, the demographic that had been a longstanding and important demographic — that older demographic — that was the group that was most negatively affected by the pandemic. Frankly, those people were scared to come out. That older demographic has largely come back now, but we see a world where they are paired with a younger demographic.
In a few weeks, California residents will have a chance to vote on two propositions. One would legalize sports betting at certain tribal casinos and racetracks. The other would legalize online sports betting in the state. What do you think will happen there, and how do you think the outcome might affect Las Vegas?
There’s a general consensus that both propositions are going to fail. If that happens, then the competing factions will have to erase the chalkboard and head back to Sacramento to try to find, if possible, common ground. What it would mean for Nevada is that sports betting is not going to open up any time soon in California.
You talked during your keynote address at G2E about the ongoing threat that illegal gambling poses to the legal industry. How big of an issue is that moving forward?
It’s the No. 1 threat to our industry. We need law enforcement and politicians and regulators to step in to protect this legitimate industry, which is in 44 states around the country. Whether it’s online or offshore websites or these gray market skill machines that are growing like weeds in places like Florida and Pennsylvania, this is the most worrisome threat the industry faces today — I’d say even more than inflation or any of the other economic uncertainties.
