 What does the author think the gaming commission will recommend?
Is <A NAME= Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. It may finally settle this question: Is gambling Hollywood or tobacco? This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. The commission won't (and can't) take any grand stand against gambling. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. The commission may recommend that gaming taxes be used to underwrite treatment of pathological gamblers and that insurance companies be encouraged to cover gambling addiction. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. It will call for heavier regulation of Indian gambling and will probably try to ban or severely regulate Internet gambling, perhaps by forbidding gambling companies from running online casinos. In short, it will treat gambling as a tobaccolike vice. If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. Gamblers don't quite accept the cigarette analogy--though commission member Bill Bible, a former chief of the Nevada Gaming Commission, did concede that gambling was like alcohol--but they're happy to sign on to the specific measures. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination.
 Specific policies that target compulsive gambling.
 Removing a percentage of slot machines from each casino.  Specific policies that target compulsive gambling.  Shutting down half the casinos in Vegas.  Capping the betting at tables.