How Responsibly Do Casinos Want You To Game? Not Very.

Yesterday, I needed to look up when the Monte Carlo offers free gambling lessons for an upcoming update of my Random House/Knopf guidebook of Vegas. I went to the resort's website, then clicked on the tab for CASINO and found myself on a screen with many options.

This one intrigued me:


Huh. What exactly is a "Responsible Gaming Tour"? I clicked on it because I thought perhaps it would lead me to the dates and times for those free lessons. Knowing the rules of the games is certainly one way to play responsibly, no?

Well, no. When you click on that, you end up with this:


When you click on this video, you watch a lesbo-erotic scene at a craps table where sexy ladies score big on a bet.


That looks like FUN, right? Winning, duh!

OK. So imagine this. You think you might be an addicted gambler and you want to know more, and the first thing you see are the words "HIT THE CASINO." Awesome! Then, after being inserted in this girl-on-girl fantasy of gambling, you scroll down below to boilerplate about what a phenomenally altruistic place the Monte Carlo is. A variation of the the same screed appears on every MGM Resorts site that provides a responsible gaming section -- the sites for Aria and Circus Circus don't even bother, which is interesting -- and what is there is very poorly written, self-congratulatory hooey.

Go look for yourself; the first 260 words of the 400-word copy block is all about the things the resort does to combat problem gambling. Only near the end -- almost as an aside -- do they stick this little bit of useful intel:

If you feel you need help, please call the following 24-hour confidential national hotline:
Nevada Council on Problem Gambling 1 (800) 522-4700

Yeah. They're really trying to help you.

I became curious, so I went to see what the other casino sites do on this score. The results were fascinating and surprising. The Mirage, MGM Grand and New York-New York were reasonably straightforward and appropriately understated...


...but some of the others offered imagery that defeats the message. Mandalay Bay and Luxor, for instance, think happy hot babes aptly illustrate compulsive gambling...


...as did Hooters, although it's hard to understand why Hooters couldn't do a better job on this, uh, front:


I like how the Bellagio seems to suggest that the addictive-inclined may find alcohol a wonderful alternative to putting the college fund on the Steelers:


There's also the having-fun-and-getting-lucky approach of MGM Grand Detroit, Stratosphere, Foxwoods, the Tropicana, Treasure Island and all the Boyd resorts:



The Excalibur also seemed to imply compulsive gambling could lead to a happy relationship...


...although maybe they're making a subversive remark about this woman's impaired judgment seeing how her alleged paramour also appeared here:


The Caesars Entertainment properties all feed to the same place where, evidently, gambling makes you very happy and royal flushes are yours for the taking:


The trouble with Caesars is their sites don't even offer a responsible gaming tab under the heading for casino information. Instead, you must scrape the bottom of each resort's site to the fine print. Here's the whole Caesars Palace homepage...


...and way, way down on the bottom, look at what you find:


The Boyd properties pull the same gag:


Like MGM, the most important thing to Boyd and Caesars about responsible gaming is . . . how great Boyd and Caesars are about responsible gaming. Of the 2,200 words of blather on Caesars' site, it takes 900 before they get to what you should do it you think you're an addict. And even then it's all about them, see:

In 1995, Caesars Entertainment helped fund the creation and start-up of the first national helpline (1-800-522-4700) for problem gambling - providing callers with counseling and direction to local assistance in any state. Our funding to assist local health service agencies, councils, and seminars continues yearly through funding efforts by our corporate office and casino properties. Knowing gambling problems can potentially reach the "other side" of the table, Caesars Entertainment provides confidential counseling assistance for employees through our Employee Assistance Program.

Gosh, aren't they just the noblest?

The Palms and Cosmo don't dress up their RG sites. Look how plain and unadorned they are:


Meanwhile, the art on the Wynn site is at least appropriate, showing some manicured shlub forking over his dough...


...and this guy in the Station Casino image doesn't look like he's enjoying at ALL.


Still, in all these cases, links to various entertainment and gaming options -- where you'll find happy images of lucky, sexy winners, no doubt -- are right there next to the wet-blanket message. Can you imagine a site for information about alcoholism that has links to all the best brands of beer and the nearest saloon? Or a sex addiction site adorned by images of really hot, undressed men and women? Or an overeaters anonymous site with fried chicken-and-Doritos wallpaper?

I do appreciate the simplicity of the copy on the Palms' page. This is all there is, and perhaps all that's necessary:

For most people gambling is entertainment
For others, it can be a serious problem. Report a problem.
Gambling is exciting, entertaining and should be fun, but for some it’s a serious problem.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, please call 1.800.522.4700 or visit the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling at www.nevadacouncil.org.

Two examples of better efforts stood out from my survey.

First, Borgata in Atlantic City. This is interesting because it's co-owned (for now!) by MGM Resorts, which does a poor job of providing Web information and often packages it with such defeating imagery, and Boyd, which makes visitors pull out a microscope to even find the RG link. The Borgata's RG tab is still hard to find -- the link is tiny and at the bottom of each page -- but then there is this pop-up:


There's a lot less of the we're-so-awesome crap; it's just straight advice on what to do and how to define problem gambling. But more importantly, it's disembodied from the rest of the site. Plus, they make it easy to print out, too. It's as if someone's thought about this or something.

But the folks who do this the best and most sincerely are . . . the Las Vegas Sands. I know, that shocked me, too. They make their RG section so prominent on their homepage that Google shows it as a top option...


...and they seem to have considered what sort of art to display with their message:


You wanna be that despondent fellow? I sure don't.

What's more, there's some brief blah-blah about what Sands does but much more prominent is the hotline phone number right there for where to call. And rather than littering the page with all sorts of advertisements and links enticing you to do the activity that you're concerned you can't stop doing, you see this rail instead:


Check it out. This is how it ought to be done. Given that LVS CEO Sheldon Adelson actually once told me that there's no such thing as gambling addiction in Asia, I'm further impressed that there's information and an organized program available specific for Macau and Singapore. Then again, Adelson's wife is an addiction specialist, so maybe it's her influence.

Bottom line is that it's clear from the material that MGM, Boyd and Caesars, among others, view this primarily as a feel-good public relations tool rather than information that could save someone's life. If they were serious about this they would:

* Skip all the yappity yap about how responsible they are and lead with how you can get help
* Make sure visitors don't have to hunt too hard to find the information on every page of their sites
* Choose imagery that does NOT whet one's appetite to do that which the visitor is attempting to abstain
* Set up a page separate from the rest of the site without alluring links

I didn't intend to do all of this -- I got on a kick and couldn't stop -- but I think this is a pretty important matter. Anyone who has ever had an addiction knows how hard it is to stop. If the casino industry actually wants to be taken seriously, they need to fix this today. Otherwise, their next "Responsible Gaming Week" will be a farce.

Pacing Main St W/One O' The Boyds

Last week, I tagged along with Boyd Gaming founder and Executive Chairman Bill Boyd as he walked one of his properties shaking hands with as many employees as he can find. I had heard he does this regularly, so I wanted to shadow him and did so for this week's Las Vegas Weekly column, which is up now.

While this bit of feel-goodism made for a fine column, I was actually almost as fascinated by the property we toured as by the folksy millionaire making nice with the charges: Main Street Station.


This is not one I have given much thought to since I was a reporter at the Review-Journal in the late 1990s and we would frequently grab lunch at the brew pub because it was near the office. Never, in all those visits, did I notice this...


...or this...


or this:


What I'm trying to show is that 400-room Main Street Station, sitting alone at the northwest corner of what most people consider the downtown Vegas cluster of hotels, is a surprisingly -- possibly bizarrely -- fancy facility. It started life as Church Street Station, a Vegas version of a similarly ornate resort in Orlando, and Boyd Gaming bought it once it was in bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. They renamed it Main Street Station and left most of the design features intact.

Its prior owners invested heavily in adornments, woodwork and antiques. But this being a Vegas casino -- and an unimpressive-looking one in a distressed section of the city -- it is easy to assume these are garish knock-offs. Yet the railcar really was used by Buffalo Bill, the street lamps really did come from 1870s Brussels, the chandelier really was brought over from the Figaro Opera House in Paris and this wild boar behind the bar really did once stand sentry at a public fountain in Nice, France:


I didn't get a good shot of it, but even the gaming tables have some beautiful carved-wood bodies and stands. Oh, and yes, that mosaic-colored rock behind these urinals in the men's room off of the casino actually is a part of the Berlin Wall:

See?


Dunno -- don't WANT to know -- what lurks in the ladies room.

One of the sad parts of the place is that some of its more interesting features aren't really used by the public. There's a second floor that's no longer accessible to guests with these gorgeous pool tables just sitting there:

And the economy has shuttered the Pullman Grille, leaving undiscovered such treasures as these doors removed from George Pullman's mansion in Prairie, Ill.:


So it was kind of a treat to wander the place. They even have a printed self-guided tour to all the antiques and such all over the place.

Not to mention, the place seems to have something else that has suddenly become classic: coin-in slot machines. No, really. Check this out:


When was the last time you saw stacks of these in a Vegas casino?


There were a couple of behind-the-scenes bits that didn't make it into the column, of course. I also found the employee break area kind of funny to look at:


Boyd went in the shake hands with the guys and oddly remarked at how nice it was that they had stools upon which to put their feet.

And since Main Street and the California are joined by a pedestrian bridge and the Cal is known as a haven for Hawaiian travelers who fly in on Boyd's charter flights, it is the rule that employees who have any responsibilities at the Cal wear uniforms that include...


...Hawaiian shirts! Love that!

And the dominoes begin to fall

After months upon months of reporting that almost every major gaming company was on the brink of bankruptcy, the first has finally declared.

Arnold Knightly of the Review-Journal posted a piece a few hours ago indicating that the locals-joint king Station Casinos plans to file by April 15. MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands and Harrah's also are teetering on the brink. (I don't count Herbst Gaming and Tropicana Entertainment as a major interest upon whose fate Las Vegas as a whole depends, but technically they were first to bankruptcy, I suppose.)

Wynn and Boyd appear to be stable for the time being and Boyd, of course, is still in the market to buy Station assets. One wonders if Station ought to swallow its pride and take the $950 million or wait it out and give away more for less. It's not like revenues are going to get much better in the coming months.

Boyd Buying Station?!?

I don't understand. Boyd's stock is at $3.40 a share. They've halted construction on Echelon. And now they've sent a "non-binding preliminary indication of interest" indicating they want to buy a whole bunch of Station Casinos properties for $950 million in cash? The letter says Boyd has $2 billion in liquidity.

It's times like these I'm glad I'm not on the Vegas Gang podcast. I'm not qualified.

Lunch at The Las Vegas Country Club

I've just come in from lunch here...


That's the clubhouse of the storied Las Vegas Country Club, a legendary retreat for the city's rich, powerful and notable right behind the Las Vegas Hilton. Remember the post I did on the Meadows School a while back? Well, the parents of those kids are members here. From Steve & Edie to Lefty Rosenthal to porn stars, this place has been a gossip factory for decades.

I'd never been, but I had a getting-to-know-you meal with Bill Boyd, Boyd gaming's co-founder and executive chairman. There wasn't a whole lot of news to come from the visit other than that they're still considering their options for what to do with the stalled Echelon resort on the Strip and when to do it and he's pleased for his downtown properties that Hawaiian Air is adding another Honolulu-Vegas flight starting soon, which I hadn't heard and don't see any reportage about online. So that could be some good economic news for a city that desperately needs some.

But that wasn't the point of the visit so there isn't much else to say about it. He's an exceedingly pleasant and down-to-earth man and I believe I'll be doing a formal interview for "The Strip" sometime soon.

Still, it gave me the opportunity to lap up the thrillingly Palm Springs-style architecture of the place. That shot above is the front from afar, but here it is from closer up and from the back patio...


Here's the front foyer:


...the main dining room...


...the bar and grill...


...and the part I found most physically stunning, the area outside the restrooms and leading, I think, to some card tables.


I don't recall where this escalator below leads to, but just look at the stonework, which is original circa 1967:


As I left, I noticed a couple of vanity license plates I couldn't resist snapping. The first, unmistakably, must belong to Thalia Dondero, a longtime Clark County commissioner and major-league political power broker profiled here.


Yep, that's my Jewfro in the shot.

And finally, I can't be sure but I think it's pretty safe to assume this Aston Martin convertible...



...belongs to the fellow with whom I lunched. Let's hope for his company's sake that that's not the only thing in Vegas that ever says "Echelon."