At least one hospitality official in Nevada welcomes regulatory oversight as casinos return to action amid a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state and its neighbors.
For Virginia Valentine, president of the Nevada Resort Association, the goal is not to go backwards and keep the doors open.
Valentine made her comments July 11 during the final day of the ICE North America digital conference. This comes after the Nevada Gaming Control Board cited 111 violations against gaming license holders over safety protocols following the re-opening of casinos.
“Consumer confidence comes from seeing health and safety guidelines being published on websites and from enforcement from gaming and health districts,” Valentine said.
Valentine cited testing and contact tracing as additional keys to the recovery, according to Buck Wargo, of CDC Gaming Reports. She also acknowledged concern about being in business while the virus is still floating around.
“After the big push for the Phase Two reopening (of the casinos), it was how do we get to Phase Three. But now, I think we’re pretty much focused on staying open,” Valentine said. “Recovery isn’t just about what we do here, though I think we’re getting it right. It’s also about how it works around the country. The whole country has to be trending well and travel bans and restrictions have to be lifted.”
Critics blasted the casino industry for not doing enough to ensure that customers were properly distancing before masks were mandated on June 26. Social-media videos from inside gaming floors and at pools also set a bad example.
“It takes only a few seconds with a camera showing what isn’t right, no matter how much is right,” she said. “We have people driving in to visit, but to sustain that, we have to step up our game and adhere to the standards. We call ourselves the gold standard for gaming regulation and we want to be the gold standard for health and safety.”
Jeffrey Hamilton, president of the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, concurs. Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods reopened on June 1 despite objections from Governor Ned Lamont, given the state’s role as an epicenter early on.
“Everyone should understand that safety is now the most important thing,” Hamilton said. “A lot of times, we focus on guest services and hospitality as the most important things, but those have become secondary to safety. Guests have to feel safe or they won’t come.”
Hamilton cited temperature-check technology, wipes, hand sanitizer, and more throughout the property. “The more signage, the more wipes, dispensers and hand sanitizer, the more things you can do to let your customers know that this is a safe environment,” he said.
Slot consultant Buddy Frank, said it’s still too early to know which strategy works best: removing chairs, turning off every other slot machine, and installing Plexiglas shields between games.
Some experts said Nevada’s response is less than the gold standard.
“I know they took a lot of testimony from a lot of health-care experts and have relied on that, and I also know that they continue to talk to their health care experts,” said A.G. Burnett, who served as chair of the state Gaming Control Board from 2012 to 2017. “In my opinion, they’ve done a very thorough job.”
But former Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Tony Alamo, who is also a health care professional, said regulators didn’t do enough.
“This whole thing was messed up from the beginning,” Alamo said. “At the end of the day, common sense wasn’t able to be used because of the misinformation we were getting.”
Other states didn’t fare well either, Alamo said.
“Everybody did it wrong. Look at how New York was mishandled. There were mistakes all over the place. On one side, (New York Gov. Andrew) Cuomo said the sky is falling and wanted 40,000 ventilators. We even gave him a ship (the Navy hospital vessel Comfort). He never used it.”
Each state had its own approach when it came to temperature checks of employees and casino patrons, social distancing on casino floors, the touching of cards, dice and other equipment and, of course, masks.
Gaming Control Board Chairwoman Sandra Morgan, said one of the problems is policies established through health professionals and government leaders were so fluid that what might stand as policy one day could easily be updated the next, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
“Every state has a different regulatory framework when it comes to gaming,” Morgan said. “Massachusetts has three licensees, and they have the benefit of each and every licensee being able to submit their plans to the gaming commission there and have an open-meeting discussion, and they have a $36 million budget. We have a $44 million budget and 2,000 licensees. So that’s something Nevada simply can’t do.”
California was considered the strictest when it came down to standards and having thought through some of the more detailed elements, said Greg Chase, founder and CEO of Las Vegas-based Experience Strategy Associates. “For instance, (casino) employers in California are not allowed to touch cards at the table, and instead the dealer reveals the cards for each player. So only one person’s set of hands is touching a deck of cards as opposed to up to five sitting at a table.”
In Massachusetts, casinos require masks and no smoking, but they will not allow major table games due to the number of people touching the equipment.
But casinos in the state fall under the jurisdiction of sovereign nations that set their own rules.
“Arizona was a bit of a free-for-all,” Chase said. “But in Nevada, I have not experienced one casino where they are not allowing players to touch cards.”
Greg Mullen, vice president of CDC Consulting, which has had people attend 80 casino re-openings nationwide, also praised the California tribal operations and said the San Manuel Casino in San Bernardino County “top to bottom is one of the best we’ve seen.”
The casino required mandatory masks long before Nevada adopted its policy.
Morgan believes New Jersey and Massachusetts learned from Nevada’s experience.
“They have to look at their own statistics in their own states,” Morgan said. “We definitely communicate with other regulators. Michigan even thanked us publicly.”
A kickoff panel on July 14 offered two bits of knowledge with respect to Covid-19: politics will hamper sports betting expansion for the remainder of the year, and state budget shortfalls will push the need to legalize sportsbooks next year and beyond.
The panelists had this warning as well: states might overtax the industry and stifle growth.
“States like Massachusetts, North Carolina and Ohio that we thought were shoe-ins are now maybe looking at 2021 for passage,” said Stacie Stern, director of government affairs for FanDuel. “When you have politics in play and try to introduce legislation that still today could be somewhat controversial, it’s difficult to get people on the same page when you need bipartisan effort.”
John Pappas, founder and CEO of Corridor Consulting, said one of the problems revolves around the return to business for state lawmakers given the rise on cases of Covid-19. Still, a lot of backroom discussions are taking place, especially as acceptance of sports betting grows.
Stern mentioned states like Alabama and Wyoming, which have a task force or study commission and are seriously looking at sports betting and other forms of gaming. “I don’t know if this would have happened just a few years ago,” Stern said. “The attitudes are definitely shifting.”
Becca Giden, a senior analyst with EK Gaming LLC, said some states will put the onus on voters through referendums.
