Feature: AGA to be quite damaging for industry in general but specifically our industry, the other thing that people have come to recognize is they really want to get out and have something that works like normal. It may well be a different ‘normal.’ The precursor to getting out and having fun is ‘Is this safe?’ As we continue to vaccinate over a million and a half people per day in this country—the first thing I look at every day is what’s the seven-day average in terms of deaths, reported cases and hospitalizations—and now I’m tracking the number of people that are being vaccinated. For our industry, an industry that is a fun and entertainment outlet, and a return to normal life, it is important. Saving rates are historically high for Americans during this time. They’ve been paying their bills down. As the economy opens up and travel continues to become less worrisome for the American public, our industry is poised for a real exciting rebound. Brick-and-mortar revenues have been mixed but sports betting and i-gaming are way up and continuing to rise. Are we seeing a shift in how we spend our gaming dollars or is this a temporary phenomenon? It’s difficult to make a comparison. Brick-and-mortar were shut down by governmental leaders in the past year, and sports betting has only recently been legal—since May of 2018—anywhere but Nevada. We continue to see strong uptick by a number of
states: 25 states plus the District of Columbia, in terms of those that actually have sports betting. That increase was going to happen whether brick-andmortar casinos were necessarily closed or not, simply because in the entire country with the exception of Nevada nobody could bet legally on sports. So that increase is one that we will continue to see as brickand-mortar continues to reopen. In terms of i-gaming, it’s only in a reasonably small number of states but the pandemic would have been far more devastating to the industry had we not had mobility and the ability to access gaming offerings in your own home. The experiences are completely different, right? I do not think they are a zero-sum dynamic. You’re seeing almost all the operators across the country begin to have an online component and it’s because they recognize a need to offset the illegal market, which is a combination of your corner bookie and offshore, online illegal operators. Having a legal, regulated Volume 17: Issue 144
option to the market is important and it is additive to the omnichannel experience that our members can offer. The addition of mobility is not something that takes the place of being able to go to one of our properties and go to a restaurant, and see a show, enjoy the pool and hit the casino floor. Is litigation of the Federal Wire Act in the rearview mirror at last? We now have a new administration. We don’t have a great deal of insight into the Attorney Generaldesignate’s position on that and hope to get clarity when he goes before his confirmation hearings. Like every business in America, our industry looks for clarity and certainty. With the court’s ruling I believe that is issue is largely behind us. You’ve been generally supportive of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal. What’s in it for gaming? The additional stimulus, from our perspective, is getting money in Americans’ hands so they can pay their bills and be able to travel and purchase things. It’s very important, we have—as a gaming industry— for a long time been carved out. From our perspective, it’s very important to remain where we are, which is being treated like any other business in America. Is there anything that isn’t in there but should be? We’ve pressed for liability protection. Nevada made
some important steps in and around liability. We have to do it in a targeted manner. But part of the challenge of moving the Covid-relief bill through reconciliation, which is probably more archaic that you may or may not want to dive down into, it does limit the number of issues in and around the Covid environment into almost strictly finding-money issues. So there are some pieces that we will not be able to have addressed in this first Covid-relief bill. But I hope we’ll get an opportunity to move with this forward. There’s important measures that need to be addressed and supported to restart business travel, conferences, conventions. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto had an important amendment to the Covid-relief bill and we’ll continue to work towards moving that because it’s bipartisan, it’s something that we need to do as we’re looking not just to stimulate vacation travel but the business-travel segment that is so important to many of our destinations, specifically Las Vegas. 37
