Adding to the state’s tax woes: It hasn’t been able to collect gaming tax on $166 million in wagers — the amount bet in Nevada casinos with markers that have not been repaid by the gamblers.
The unpaid markers account for perhaps the largest gambler debt in years.
What concerns tax officials isn’t so much the amount of the debt but the fact that the industry is having less success in collecting on it.
Historically, casinos collect between 95 percent and 97 percent of outstanding markers. Lately, it’s been about 94 percent.
Some debts might stem from Chinese New Year, a high roller and marker-generating extravaganza for Nevada casinos. Gamblers commonly wait to repay markers generated over the holiday when they return to Las Vegas, Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander said.
The economic downturn is also likely to blame, he said.
The state takes casino debts seriously: By law, Nevada casinos have to begin the collection process after a certain period of time, and debtors can face jail time.
A few percentage points in collections might only be a few million dollars, but the state, with its ballooning deficit, needs all the dollars it can scrape together.
The state’s Economic Forum factored marker debts into its latest estimate of Nevada’s gaming tax collections, which are estimated to fall by 4.2 percent in fiscal year 2008 and to increase by 2 percent the following fiscal year, for a net decline of 1.4 percent over the next biennium.
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A bill to devote federal tax money to research on problem gambling — an attempt to further legitimize gambling addiction as a public health problem and further distance research from casino industry funding sources — has died in Congress.
Advocates at the National Council on Problem Gambling hope to revive the bill next year.
To help raise awareness of the issue, the council conducted the first nationwide survey of attitudes toward gambling addiction, releasing the results during this week’s National Conference on Problem Gambling in Long Beach, Calif.
The survey revealed what researchers called “patronizing” attitudes toward gambling addiction: 32 percent said compulsive gambling is primarily a personal or moral weakness, 13 percent said it is primarily a disease and 68 percent said controlling it is mostly a matter of willpower. However, 83 percent of adults surveyed think it’s important for parents to talk to their children about the risks of gambling.
“Research tells us that problem gambling is deeply rooted in both a person’s biology and their life experience,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. “It’s not that those with a gambling addiction are weak-willed or bad people.”
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Efforts to roll back Steve Wynn’s policy of sharing dealer tips with supervisors have suffered setbacks in recent months, but the fight is far from over.
The state Supreme Court is expected this month to uphold a state court ruling that dealers did not have the right to sue their employer over a matter that should be decided by Nevada’s labor commissioner.
After the appeal is resolved, the commissioner is expected to take up a complaint filed by Wynn dealers, a process that could take several months. Also, a complaint against Wynn is pending in federal court after the Nevada secretary of state rejected a ballot initiative attempting to roll back Wynn’s policy. The complaint challenges Nevada’s “single subject rule,” the basis for keeping numerous initiatives off the November ballot, as unconstitutional.
Unless the tip issue is resolved with a change in law or with a court decision forcing Wynn to reverse the policy, dealers say the issue will inspire more of their own to organize under the Transport Workers Union.
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