UNLV, UNR unwittingly schedule competing gaming conferences

David Strow

Friday, June 9, 2000 | 10:55 a.m.

Nevada's two universities plan major gaming industry conferences in Las Vegas next week -- and have, unwittingly, ended up in a scheduling conflict.

UNLV's "Casino Ops 2000," its third annual conference on casino business operations, will open at the Regent Las Vegas on Monday. One day later, at the MGM Grand Convention Center, the University of Nevada at Reno will begin its 11th annual Conference on Gambling and Risk-taking, an academic-oriented conference held every three years.

Both sides say they're disappointed at the unwitting conflict, though each is confident their respective conferences won't cannibalize from each other.

"It was a total coincidence," said Roger Gros, senior editor with Casino Journal Publishing Group, the company co-producing Casino Ops with UNLV. "We had a hard time finding space, so there was not much we could do when we found out."

About 400 people are expected to attend UNR's conference, while 350 will attend UNLV's.

Originally, UNR's Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming had scheduled its conference for early June, when it wouldn't have conflicted with the UNLV conference. But the conference time was shifted at the request of the World Lottery Association, which asked UNR to reschedule so its conference wouldn't conflict with the association's conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

"We just didn't talk to each other," said Judy Cornelius, assistant director of the UNR institute. "When Bill (Eadington, director of the institute) started this conference ... there were just four gaming conferences around the world. Now, there's one every week somewhere. So there's a lot of competition for audiences."

However, both organizers say they expect little competition for attendees.

"There's not a lot of crossover on attendance, so I don't think we'll be hurting each other," Gros said.

UNLV's conference, which focuses in squarely on the business of casino operations, tries to draw from low and mid-level casino management. Sessions focus around slot machines, table games and general casino issues.

"This is an intense two-day session where you can learn anything you want to know about operating a casino," Gros said. "We try to show people how to operate an efficient and effective casino operation."

UNR's conference, by comparison, is heavily weighted toward academic research on the issue of problem gambling around the world. Ninety-six sessions are planned over a three-day period, with academics and consultants presenting more than 200 papers.

"There's a lot of areas (in the gaming industry) that haven't been looked at closely and objectively enough, issues that still need to be addressed," Cornelius said. "This is a good forum to present early (academic) work."

Most of the sessions will deal with problem gambling research, though some other issues will be discussed including Internet gambling.

Most attendees are expected to be academics and government officials, with some industry representatives.

"We'd like to see more (business people), because there's a lot of information that would be applicable to them in their jobs," Cornelius said. "It's hard to convince people working in the industry that research has applicability, that it's not all dry, esoteric theory."