Gaming chairman named

Monday, Jan. 8, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Dennis Neilander, an expert in corporate securities, today was named chairman of the state Gaming Control Board, the agency that polices the gambling industry in Nevada.

Gov. Kenny Guinn made the announcement after interviewing board members Bobby Siller and Scott Scherer last week. Neilander replaces Steve DuCharme in the $105,000 a year job. DuCharme, on the board since 1991, served as chairman since September 1998 but did not seek reappointment.

Guinn said, "This was a difficult decision because all three board members have the talent and capability to hold the chairmanship. However, Dennis' length of service and depth of experience were the deciding factors in my decision to appoint him chair of this very important board."

Neilander said he will continue to work with all the parties to try to resolve the issue of betting on college sporting events without wagering being banned altogether. He said the state Gaming Commission will adopt regulations this month tightening the oversight on betting at Nevada's sports books.

"It's important we do whatever we can," he said, referring to permitting continued betting on collegiate athletic events.

The board, he said, must keep abreast of Internet gambling, which is banned by the federal government. "But with the status of present technology, I don't believe it's possible to prevent minors and people from places where gaming is illegal from gambling on the Internet."

The new chairman doesn't intend to make "any drastic changes" in the way the 430-employee agency is run. "The agency is performing well," he said. But he added, "We need to address our salary issues."

In the last two years there has been a "significant increase in turnover, and we are losing some of our best people." The agency has a plan toward keeping employees "but we need help in salary," he said.

Neilander intends to look at overhauling some regulations in financing that were adopted in the 1970s.

Neilander, 39, was appointed to the three-member board in December 1998 to fill the unexpired term of DuCharme when he moved up to chairman. And Neilander was reappointed to a four-year term in January 1999. He has been on the board three months longer than Siller, who retired from the FBI. And Scherer, former chief of staff for Guinn, will attend his first meeting as a board member this week in Las Vegas.

Before being named to the board, Neilander was chief of corporate securities in the agency, overseeing the transactions of the big gaming companies in Nevada. Prior to that he served as the staff for the Judiciary Committees in the Legislature, handling gaming, criminal and other legal matters.

He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado and earned a law degree from the University of Denver's College of Law.

He is the 14th chairman to serve since the board was created in 1955. He will oversee an agency that has a budget of more than $33 million a year, which has divisions of audit, tax and license, investigations, corporate securities, enforcement, electronic services and administration.

Neilander, in a prepared statement, said he would do "everything I can to maintain the board's integrity and continue its good work." He said he would use the expertise of the other two board members who are highly qualified.