Panel disagrees on number of recommendations to make

Mark D. Preston

Monday, May 17, 1999 | 1:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nearing the end of a two-year fact-finding mission to study gaming's societal impact, federal gambling commissioners continue to disagree over the contents of their report due to Congress next month.

Meeting this morning, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission worked to reach a consensus on a list of recommendations about how to regulate gambling that will be included in the June report. But the panel's diversity, which has prevented both pro- and anti-gaming commissioners from steering the agenda in any one direction, has also proven to be divisive.

Major stumbling blocks include the wording of many of the recommendations and the number the panel should present to Congress in its report. There are 198 recommendations contained in the report, said Commission Chairwoman Kay C. James. A handful of commissioners today said that is far too many to present to Congress. In order for the report to be effective, some commissioners said it needs to be written as concisely as possible.

Commissioner Bill Bible, a former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said if the commission "speaks and speaks with a united voice, a few well-directed recommendations are going to have a lot more impact than a wide variety of recommendations."

Bible suggests the commission should narrow the scope of its recommendations to between five and 20 suggestions.

Commissioner Paul Moore, a Mississippi doctor, said he too would like the report to be more compact. Moore said he would like to see the commission offer up to 50 recommendations over how to regulate gambling. He said this is important, "to say the things we believe and the things we would like the American people to believe or at least consider."

But Commissioner James Dobson, a Christian radio talk-show host, said he doesn't think the panel should limit the amount of ideas and recommendations to Congress just to be "succinct."

"This is the first commission to study gambling in 20 years and it may be the last one for another 20 years," Dobson said. "We have developed a lot of new information. We have worked for two years to look at various aspects of gambling -- I don't think we ought to limit ourselves."

But Bible said there is a need for the report to have boundaries. "I think that if you have a report that comes out with several hundred recommendations it doesn't have nearly the impact than if you have a report that has a fewer number of recommendations."

Commissioner John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, said the commission should focus the report on two main areas: Pathological gambling and federal government's ability to enforce regulations.

"I think the report should be concentrated on problem gambling in function and areas only where the federal government can realistically do (something)," he said. "If we throw too many recommendations at too great a cost ... we are going to end up with nothing."

This morning the commission agreed on a number of recommendations regarding state lotteries. The commission later was to tackle gambling and addiction, technology and the future of gambling, Indian gambling and gambling's impact on particular people and places. The commission is scheduled to wrap up its meeting Tuesday, when it will discuss what future research needs to be done to complete the report.