 What is next door to the author's hotel?
Is <A NAME= Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. In yesterday's dispatch, gambling's foes learn the folly of having brought their anti-sin crusade to an adult Disneyland. Wednesday, even commission Chair Kay Coles James, a gambling skeptic, succumbs to the hideous Vegas euphemism: She begins referring to the "gaming industry." This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. It is starting to become clear what that report will say. 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. 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. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. Because it provides superb cover for them. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. The cigarette agenda will also distract the commission and the public from the true reasons for worry. A few years ago, gambling was confined to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It is now thriving in 48 states, and there is no sign that anyone can stop it. They can call it "vice." As long as the commission just nibbles around the edges, the casino operators and state lotteries will be happy to indulge it. As several readers pointed out to me, "Indian country" is a common phrase in the West and has no derogatory connotations. Talk about quick defeats: The first sign I see outside the MGM Grand ballroom all but declares that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission has already lost. The sign reads: "National Gaming Impact Study Commission." In Las Vegas, the euphemizers reign. Once upon a time, the casino owners decided that "gambling" was too crude, too avaricious, to describe their fair business. So "gambling" disappeared in Las Vegas, and "gaming" has risen in its place. Video slot machines crammed into convenience stores--perhaps the most pernicious form of legal gambling there is--are called "retail gaming."
 The Eifel Tower
 David Cassidy's show  The Bellagio  The Eifel Tower  The MGM Grand