Gaming regulators find give and take is no laughing matter

First, there was game designer Derek Webb tongue-lashing regulators on the committee for not having high enough standards in dealings with companies that have had problems in the past, specifically naming William Hill, Full Tilt and bwin.party.

“Nevada’s licensing of William Hill is truly baffling,” Webb said.

The committee members, including Gov. Brian Sandoval, Gaming Commission Chairman Pete Bernhard and Gaming Control Board Chairman Mark Lipparelli, sat stone-faced and opted not to respond directly to Webb’s comments. But during a break, Bernhard said William Hill’s June licensing was as a race and sports book operator in Nevada, not as an online gaming operator.

No company has received Nevada’s blessing to do that, although it’s likely to occur in the next three months, Lipparelli said.

Later, Bernhard and Lipparelli made it clear that the online gaming operators who are approved may not be paragons of perfection, just as the original founders of legalized gaming in Nevada mostly came from the world of illegal gambling.

“I wrestle with these issues,” Bernhard said.

He doesn’t want to set a hard-and-fast rule that any violation of U.S. law would prohibit a person or a company from becoming licensed in Nevada.

One conflict between committee members was more subtle, pitting regulators against legislators.

You had the regulators – Bernhard and Lipparelli – saying they needed as much flexibility as possible to deal with the fast-moving issues of online gambling and ever-evolving technology. Waiting for approval from the Legislature, which meets every other year for 120 days with an 18-month gap in between, ties their hands.

“We’re capable of handling what’s best for the state,” Bernhard said.

But the legislative members – Assemblyman William Horne and Sen. Valerie Wiener – are reluctant to surrender legislative oversight. Horne is chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which will handle online gaming bills.

“This doesn’t mean we have to go at breakneck speed,” he said, urging the state to be “smart instead of fast.”

Sandoval was the middleman. “Let’s give regulators the flexibility to address issues and give legislators the opportunity to review.”

The policy committee will remain in place while Sandoval would create yet another committee combining academia, regulators and industry members to work on making Nevada the “Intellectual Capital of Gaming,” an idea pitched by UNLV’s Don Snyder and Bo Bernhard.

Most of the other suggestions approved by the policy committee were more generic than specific, such as remove legislative barriers and strengthen regulatory standards. Yada. Yada.

Lipparelli is already working with unnamed other states to join together and begin online poker gaming even if the federal government doesn’t pass a bill this year. He said the idea was to join other states in creating strict uniform regulations.

“The unsavory operators will seek out the weakest regulators,” he said, referring to other states already working on their own online gaming laws.

While Sandoval and committee members raved about how productive the reactivation of the Gaming Policy Committee was, I still have doubts.

The gaming industry’s big boys on the committee, MGM’s Jim Murren and Boyd’s Keith Smith, didn’t even attend the last meeting. Murren was on the phone from Macau, but the connection broke early. Smith missed two of the four meetings. Aside from the governor, the regulators and legislators, only a few of the 11 asked questions or made comments.

Sandoval noticeably did not take a vote on the “give regulators flexibility” recommendation. Because legislators will be making that call in 2013, it could be contentious.

Surrendering power is rarely done willingly by Nevada legislators.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison