Columnist Jeff German: Gamers looking to clean up image

Friday, Jan. 4, 2002 | 4:52 a.m.

THE CASINO INDUSTRY heads into the new year looking to solidify its Washington lobbying team and pump up its image on the home turf in Las Vegas.

Last month the American Gaming Association, the industry's chief lobbying arm in Washington, agreed to extend the lucrative contract of Frank Fahrenkopf, the only president and CEO the organization has ever known, for another two years.

With one year remaining on his current deal, the extension means the AGA will have Fahrenkopf, a former Republican National Committee chairman, locked up at a high six-figure salary until the end of 2004.

"It's a sign of confidence in him," says one casino insider. "It's going to be a tough year on Capitol Hill."

The AGA also is finalizing an agreement to put Wayne Mehl, the Nevada Resort Association's seasoned Washington lobbyist, under Fahrenkopf's supervision. The NRA, the industry's local political arm, is devoting all of its lobbying resources to the Nevada Legislature in Carson City, where it is a prime target for a tax hike.

Fahrenkopf has been at the helm of the AGA since the organization was created in July 1995 to fend off a national gaming tax proposed by the Clinton administration.

During this time, with the help of the industry's deep pockets, Fahrenkopf has been credited with improving gaming's national image amid an onslaught of attacks from its moral critics.

He has been fond of quoting a recent AGA-financed poll that shows more than 80 percent of Americans view casino gambling as an acceptable form of entertainment.

In Las Vegas the NRA, under the direction of its president, Bill Bible, is hoping to do some image enhancing of its own with at least one new public relations ploy.

The NRA has given local media consultant Sarah Ralston, a former television newswoman, a $500,000 budget to produce a half-hour gaming oriented television show on KVBC Channel 3 at 4:30 p.m. on Sundays.

The still-unnamed show, which expects to debut in February, will be co-anchored by former Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, now a senior vice president at Harrah's Entertainment Inc., and John Daly, a one-time news anchor at KTNV Channel 13.

Jones says the program presents an opportunity for the casino industry to promote in an entertaining way the important elements gaming brings to the Las Vegas community.

But she also acknowledges the show will allow the industry to use the valuable air time to put its spin on crucial issues to gaming, such as taxes.

To the astute viewer, that could create credibility problems for the industry and its television surrogates.

Because the program is being bankrolled by gaming and co-hosted by one of its top executives, it risks being seen as nothing more than a weekly publicity stunt for the wealthy industry.

The NRA, however, doesn't appear worried about that possibility. It sees the show as more cost-effective than running paid advertising campaigns promoting gambling's interests.

Bible, meanwhile, plans to hire a couple of full-time staffers in the coming weeks to coordinate the industry's overall image-boosting and lobbying efforts.

What the industry wants most of all is to make sure it escapes a major tax increase at the 2003 Legislature. Gaming is going all-out to persuade the governor and lawmakers to broaden Nevada's tax base as much as possible to spread around the financial burden of running the state.

Jones and Ralston now will have a chance to figure prominently in that high-powered strategy, as the industry takes to the air waves to influence its public perception.

Whether the plan works remains to be seen. Nevadans are much smarter than some people in high places think.

But it's a strategy that surely will draw approval from Frank Fahrenkopf, gaming's well-paid quarterback in Washington for the next three years.