Gaming Commission halts sports book rebates

Friday, Dec. 18, 1998 | 11:55 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Big time sports bettors are not going to get any special favors from Nevada casinos starting Jan. 1.

The state Gaming Commission Thursday approved the final part of a regulation prohibiting the clubs from giving rebates, prizes or bets to those who wager big sums on horse racing.

It rejected pleas from Barry Lieberman, attorney for Coast Resorts, which owns three Las Vegas casino, to modify the regulation to allow clubs to run the horse racing books like the slot machine clubs where good players accumulate points and get prizes.

After the meeting, Lieberman said, "The big bettors are already going out of state. They're getting rebates or prizes at off-track betting facilities, the tracks or Indian casinos." He predicted this regulation would cost Nevada $2.5 million in tax revenue a year.

The commission also turned down the plea of attorney Robert Faiss of the Nevada Resort Association to delay the start of the regulation, now scheduled for Jan. 1.

Casinos will apparently have to go to the Legislature, which opens Feb. 1, to get the law relaxed. The 1997 Legislature approved the bill prohibiting casinos from giving rebates on pari-mutuel wagers. Greg Gale, chief of the audit division of the Gaming Control Board, said there was a dispute between Nevada books and California race tracks over money and the televising of races into Nevada was cut off.

California tracks wanted a bigger share of the pari-mutuel handle and said Nevada books were sometimes giving 10 percent rebates to good customers. The Legislature, at the request of the Nevada Pari-Mutuel Association, approved a law stopping the rebates, Gale said.

For the past several months, discussion has been under way on tightening accounting regulations on the sports and horse race books. Part of the rules were approved earlier and this was the last piece.

Gale said the staff supported a firm rule that books cannot give discounts to bettors or give them refunds if they are good players.

For good players, some casinos have allowed special bets and odds not available to the general public. These bettors could make wagers in which there was no chance of losing. This was to entice the player to continue playing at the casinos.

That's banned in this new regulation.

Gaming Board Chairman Steve DuCharme said he could not see any good reason for a casino to offer a no-lose bet to a player. If that happened, the casinos would deduct the loss from their gross revenue and receive a tax break.

He suggested in the past, that was one of the ways money was funneled out of the casino by underworld figures.

While they can't give rebates and prizes, casinos can still "comp" food, room, beverages and travel for the people who make big wagers.