Gaming industry ‘amazed’ over neighborhood slots debate

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 10:33 a.m.

Video poker players comprise the "overwhelming majority" of the 7.5 percent of Southern Nevadans who describe themselves as compulsive gamblers, a clinical psychologist said Thursday.

His comments drew spirited responses from supermarket and convenience store owners and slot route operators as the State Gaming Control Board began hearings that some business people fear could lead to new restrictions on gaming expansion in Las Vegas.

"It's amazing we can even be having this discussion," said Dave Johnson, general counsel for slot-route operator Alliance Gaming. "Video poker and slot machines provide a significant underpinning to the economy of this community.

"The free market should decide this matter. It would be irresponsible to say there'll be no more slots in stores and bars ... because it would have an overwhelming economic impact," he said.

Dr. Robert Hunter, who treats compulsive gamblers for Charter Hospital, told Control Board members that 74 percent of adult Las Vegans say they gamble and that 73 percent of that number do so in neighborhood casinos, convenience stores and bars that feature video poker machines.

"And of the locals who gamble in a harmful way, they do so almost exclusively on video poker machines," said Hunter, who spoke via a phone hookup from a gambling conference in Alberta, Canada.

"If anything, these are conservative numbers ... generated from random telephone polls," Hunter said.

Experts have called video poker the "crack cocaine" of addictive gamblers.

"The call to action isn't to picket Station (Casinos) Inc., but to spread the word about a crippling addiction," Hunter said.

"I don't think there's a clear answer to this issues," Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones said. "I recognize the importance of the gaming industry to our economy.

"But I think we also have to consider the impact of neighborhood casinos and slot machines on the quality of life," she said. "We have to begin a process that addresses the questions."

Neither Jones nor Hunter called for a ban on video poker or slots. But both urged the impact of their use in neighborhood stores and bars be studied.

Gasoline retailer Jerry Herbst said that if slots are barred from convenience stores, "some gas stations will go out of business. the price I charge will go up 15 cents a gallon, and some supermarkets will close."

Bill Nolan of Southland Corp., franchiser of 7-Eleven stores nationwide, said his company is strongly opposed to the elimination of gaming in convenience stores.

The Control Board will hear additional testimony on the issue when it meets next week in Carson City.