Harrah's CEO's Comments Draws Criticism

LAS VEGAS --Harrah's honcho Gary Loveman was telling horror stories about overreaching by gaming regulators, charging overregulation is a needless intrusion on his civil rights.

His keynote speech at the American Gaming Summit went well, but in the post-speech panel discussion, he abandoned civil discourse and did exactly what he was grousing about.

The president and chief executive officer of Harrah's Entertainment overreached.

Loveman unwisely compared comments by Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Peter Bernhard to those of 1950s commie-basher Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Bernhard, the former Nevada Ethics Commission chairman, had been introduced as someone whose "personal approach to integrity is tougher than any state law." He was not amused at being mentioned in the same breath as McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who abused his power to engage in witch hunts against communists or perceived communists.

Loveman, a numbers guy known for his marketing expertise, used humor to make his early points. "Charles Manson has been fingerprinted less than me," he said, complaining that gaming regulators should share more information. "If I were a felon there would be an immediate sharing of fingerprints."

He told how one regulator asked his 9-year-old daughter if she had ever seen her daddy do anything bad, how agents from 15 jurisdictions routinely look through his income tax returns, and how his medical records are scrutinized. His examples were primarily from out of state.

A former academic who joined Harrah's in 1998, Loveman said such scrutiny no longer is needed, because in his view there is no evidence of organized crime's presence in the large casino companies. "That battle has been won; it's time to move on."

So he asked gaming regulators to review and redefine their policies, improve their information sharing, eliminate redundancies and rebalance privacy rights.

Bernhard, the last speaker on the panel, said "let the debate begin," but he pointed out a few realities for Loveman.

State legislatures will resist changes, because "at the first scandal" legislators' political lives will be damaged.

Regulators themselves are resistant to change, he said. Every month he sees the faces of auditors and gaming enforcement agents unhappy that the commission isn't as tough on applicants as the staff would like.

And there is tremendous public resistance to treating gaming like any other business. "The good of all is served by some of these intrusions," Bernhard said.

Loveman jumped on that comment, saying the idea that "it is the pursuit of the common good that allows trespasses on private rights" was a concept popular with McCarthy.

Loveman's comparison of him with McCarthy "is not conducive to rational discussion," Bernhard said Wednesday. Whether it's "disorganized crime or organized crime," there are still elements in the gaming industry looking for any financial advantage, whether they are slot cheat rings or suppliers, so the need for close scrutiny of gaming applicants remains.

Loveman has been at the forefront in publicly arguing that gaming regulators overreach in their investigations.

In 2001, Loveman grumbled after three years of his personal correspondence was taken by Gaming Control Board agents as part of their probe into whether he was suitable to be licensed in Nevada. Loveman later said he didn't know a reporter was in the room and might have spoken more carefully if he had.

This time, he knew a handful of scribblers were present.

He even hesitated before making the McCarthyism comment to the man who regulates his business. Unwilling to self-edit, Loveman couldn't quite pull himself back from that precipice.

It will be hard to blame the news media for distorting his comments this time, because Bernhard was there to hear it all.

Which may explain the slight edge in Bernhard's voice when he said, "There hasn't been a groundswell of public support for diminishing gaming regulations so Loveman won't have to endure fingerprinting."