Nevada delegation calls study ‘worthless’

Friday, June 18, 1999 | 11:30 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Echoing the words of the casino industry's most widely known executive, three of the four members of Nevada's congressional delegation called the National Gambling Impact Study Commission's report a waste of time and money.

Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., joined Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn in belittling the two-year study. Wynn spoke out last week in an interview with the Sun.

"The commission wasted $5 million in taxpayer funds to find out what Nevadans have known all along," Bryan said. "That is that regulated casino gambling provides a recreational opportunity for millions of Americans, and the overwhelming majority do so responsibly."

Reid, the Senate's assistant minority leader, called the commission's report "a zero."

"In my opinion, it's worthless," Reid said. "What a waste of money. There isn't anything there that the people who are anti-gaming don't already know, and there isn't anything that the people who are pro-gaming don't already know."

Reid said the commission could have spent its money more wisely looking at widespread illegal gambling in the country.

Berkley, a former casino executive, said: "I could have written that report. What the commission has reported in the study is that legalized gaming in Nevada is a legitimate industry that is clean and well regulated."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who has been a frequent critic of the nine-member commission, was more diplomatic than his colleagues.

Gibbons said he didn't agree with everything in the report, but he was encouraged that the study pointed out the economic benefits gaming brings to communities across the country.

"It showed that gaming is growing and has widespread acceptability in America," Gibbons said.

Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, said today that he was pleased overall with the report.

"The verdict is in, and the accused has been exonerated," Fahrenkopf said. "When this commission was launched, critics predicted our industry would be found guilty of all types of evils. But their charges have been proven wrong. I hate to say I told you so, but the commission report is replete with positive references to commercial casino gaming."

In an 11-page statement released today, Fahrenkopf added:

"This report confirmed the important and dramatic economic and social contributions the ... gaming industry makes in communities across the United States, while hopefully putting to rest, at long last, the erroneous anti-gaming rhetoric, myths and superstitions regarding regulations, crime and social problems."

Fahrenkopf, however, said he could not fully endorse the report.

He said the commission was wrong in recommending a sports betting ban on college athletics and tight restrictions on state and local campaign contributions from the casino industry.

The industry, Fahrenkopf said , now is better prepared to face its adversaries in the coming months.

"We can expect our opponents in Congress and in the state legislatures to cherry pick the report to find a basis for legislation that will harm the industry," he said. "We'll be ready to fight that fight, but our opponents clearly did not get a boost they thought they would in the findings of the commission report."

But one of those opponents, the Rev. Tom Grey of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, said he's gotten plenty of ammunition.

"This is the basic load that they give you in the Army when you're on the attack," Grey said. "This is ammunition that we're going to use."

Grey said the report makes the casino industry out to be the "snake oil that it is."

As in the case of the Surgeon General's 1964 report on smoking and health, he said, this report will serve as a wake-up call for America on the dangers of gambling.

"This report makes its very clear that gambling is not just another form of recreation, as its proponents claim," Grey said. "It is a very addictive and potentially destructive activity.

He called gambling "the next tobacco."