Commentary: Casino industry changes strategy in gaming study battle

Thursday, March 7, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

THE WAKEUP CALL was not unexpected this week.

The casino industry has realized it's fighting a losing battle in Washington to block the creation of a federal gaming commission.

Tuesday's House vote to establish a nine-member panel to study the social and economic impacts of gambling left the industry with little alternative but to change its strategy as the battle moves to the Senate.

Some aren't giving up hope of derailing the bill.

"We're still going to do whatever we can to stop it in the Senate," says one Nevada congressional source. "But clearly, it gained a lot of momentum in the House, and it'll be hard to slow it down."

The industry, it seems, now is conceding that a study is inevitable. The fight has switched to ensuring casino interests get a fair shake from their detractors on Capitol Hill.

"We think we can make some changes in the bill in the Senate so that any commission will be fair and unbiased and protect the sovereignty of states," says Frank Fahrenkopf, the industry's lead Washington lobbyist.

A couple of months ago, as the gaming study bill authored by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., was languishing in the House, the casino industry was confidently predicting it could kill the measure there.

But since then, a firestorm of anti-gaming criticism has surfaced in the national media, and the attacks have rallied support in Congress for the study.

This week's House vote, for example, was timed by Republican leaders to take place while the Washington Post ran a series of stories embellishing the evils of the rapidly expanding gaming industry.

Fahrenkopf issued a statement afterward indicating the vote was not a surprise.

"There was no way we were going to stop it in the House," he said.

The casino lobby, it turns out, was thrilled just to be able to persuade House leaders not to hold a roll-call vote on Wolf's bill. It passed by unanimous consent, which means supporters can't claim in the Senate that they had overwhelming support in the House.

House leaders, we learned, clearly had taken an interest in the bill.

Before the vote, Wolf personally thanked House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas for shepherding the bill to the floor.

"I appreciate the speaker of the House, the gentleman from Georgia," he said, "making this a priority item to bring up, and also the gentleman from Texas in not allowing some of these people ... who have been hired by the gambling interests to derail this bill."

Pro-gaming forces have a lot of room in the Senate to pursue the new strategy of watering down the gaming study.

The House bill, for example, appropriates $4 million and gives the commission subpoena power. The Senate version only allocates a couple hundred thousand dollars and does not authorize the use of subpoenas.

But with support for the measure steamrolling on the Hill, its eventual passage now almost seems assured.

"I've come to the conclusion, and most of the industry has come to the conclusion, that if there's a fair commission, it could be in the industry's best interests," Fahrenkopf says.

Such positive thinking is a must when fighting a losing battle in Washington.

* Good fortune is starting to follow ex-UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian to Fresno.

Though his old team struggled in transition this year under coach Bill Bayno, his new team, the Fresno State Bulldogs, has had a great season.

It was good enough to earn Tarkanian, a Las Vegas legend, Coach of the Year honors in the Western Athletic Conference.

Fresno State is 19-9 going into its tournament today.

Tarkanian always seems to find a way to win, even under the most adverse conditions.

It's true that Bayno had a tough time this year. But insiders are predicting good things from him next year, just in time for the long-awaited UNLV-Fresno State match-up in the WAC.

JEFF GERMAN is a senior investigative reporter. His column appears in the Las Vegas SUN on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. He can be reached at 259-4067 or on the Internet at german@lvsun.com