Sun, Aug 3, 2008 (2:07 a.m.)

The classic story of getting the break you’ve been waiting for, the break that brings hope for turning your life around, played itself out at July’s meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Liz Benston watched the drama unfold, and her report Wednesday included the perfect ending — a changed Robert Hackett hugging his wife, whose joy brought tears to her face.

On one level Hackett’s story is that of a never-say-die style of persistence, one that drives a person toward a goal even when the chances of achieving it appear slim to none.

On another level, the story is that of trust and no small amount of compassion trumping strict by-the-book decision making.

Poker dealer Hackett’s difficulties began several years ago when supervisors at the Sahara fired him within weeks of his hiring. They had apparently overlooked Hackett’s disclosure on his work card application that when he was 18 he had been arrested — but never charged — in connection with a burglary.

Hackett’s record also included an arrest on a drug allegation, but as in the burglary arrest, no charge was ever filed. Nevertheless, Hackett’s multiple appeals over the years before the Gaming Control Board went nowhere.

The Nevada Gaming Commission seldom reverses the control board. So it is rare for a person denied at that level to even show up for his appeal before the commission. But Hackett, 29, whose working wife has been supporting him and their children, nervously but passionately pleaded his case.

The commission reinstated Hackett’s work card on the condition that he reapply in two years, submit to random drug testing at his expense and pay off within six months $1,000 in parking fines that he had run up. “I could almost feel his plight, that he just needed this break,” commission member Dr. Tony Alamo told Benston.

Credit Hackett for not giving up on his chosen career — and credit the Gaming Commission for listening to him and tempering the rules with judgment.