In Nevada, tweaks to gaming regulations are so common that most go unnoticed—however, one legislative change that has managed to catch some attention is the foreign reporting updates featured in SB266, which passed earlier in June.
In previous decades, Nevada regulators required gaming companies in the state to provide them with copies of all materials filed in other markets or jurisdictions. These requirements were first put into place in 1977, the year after New Jersey legalized casino gambling.
Now, thanks to SB266, companies only need to “inform the control board of their gaming operations in another jurisdiction,” according to the Nevada Independent.
Gaming attorney Michael Alonso told the Independent that the previous law “was written so you would have to get approval to do business in New Jersey” and elsewhere, but the new bill has “modernized” the reporting procedures, which was crucial given how widespread gaming has become. The last changes to foreign reporting requirements came all the way back in 1997.
As of writing, more than half of U.S. states now feature brick-and-mortar casinos (tribal or commercial) and approximately three-quarters of states offer retail or mobile sports betting—most of the biggest Nevada operators now have global portfolios, hence the need to overhaul the regulatory structure.
Notably, the updates were authored and submitted by Doug Billings, an experienced gaming attorney who had recently been licensed in Nevada and was enrolled as a student pursuing a Master of Law (LL.M.) degree in gaming law at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law at the time.
Through a longstanding program founded by the late attorney and UNLV professor Bob Faiss, Boyd students have submitted revisions to gaming regulations at every legislative session in Nevada since 2001. Billings told the Independent that the idea was suggested to him by Becky Harris, a Boyd professor who previously served as chairwoman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB).
“These policies improve the ability to maintain compliance as well as strengthen the Nevada gaming regulatory environment,” Harris told the Independent.
The updates were originally introduced as part of another bill, SB379, which died in the Senate. However, some lawmakers indicated that they wanted to see the foreign reporting changes kept alive, so Billings met with Alonso as well as the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM) and the Nevada Resort Association to help gain support for the initiative.
After a successful lobbying push, the changes were attached to SB266, which centered around the designation of gaming operational districts.
In a statement provided to Vixio GamblingCompliance, the first to note the new changes, NGCB Chairman Kirk Hendrick indicated that the agency was neutral on SB266 because it wasn’t submitted by the agency itself, but acknowledged that he and his fellow board members feel that the updates “would more efficiently regulate Nevada’s gaming licensees.”
