It looks like the recent appropriations bill signed by Governor Brian Sandoval last week, which promised to help fund education in the state, will already benefit the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd School of Law.
The bill will pump $500,000 in each of the next two years for the International Center for Excellence in Gaming Regulation, which still needs to be signed off on by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents.
Daniel Hamilton, dean of the law school, said, “We want to become a resource for the gaming industry and for government that will help foster dialogue and create best practices for gaming regulators worldwide.” The center is set to bring together regulators from commercial casinos, racetrack and riverboat casinos, and American Indian casinos.
Senator Mark Lipparelli, a former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said that often you see talks about policy during conferences, but after the conference is over, the talks come to an end. “There really isn’t a concentrated setting for a center like this,” he said. He feels with a setting like this, those talks can continue on afterwards.
Bo Bernhard, executive director for UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, which is now part of the hotel school, is excited for the expansion, and said, “Teaching and research are two things universities do well. The research piece is an important part of the center.”
Boyd Law School currently offers several courses on the topic of gaming law, and recently announced a master’s program for gaming law and regulation, launching this fall. “The governor’s economic blueprint is for Nevada to become the intellectual capital for gaming,” Hamilton said.
