Freeman: All I want for Christmas …

Mid-December is a time when children compose their Christmas letters to Santa Claus. In much the same spirit, American Gaming Association President Geoff Freeman was framing a missive to Donald Trump. After pointing out that the industry was on a path to add 62,000 jobs, lifting many Americans out of poverty, Freeman made a hardly coincidental series of references to gaming’s diversity (40% minority employment), including the fact that its 20% Hispanic workforce was fully one third greater than that of the American workplace as a whole. Leading a pitch to the lily-white Trump administration with a proud declaration of workforce diversity was a brave move on Freeman’s part and he should be commended for it.

He then went to lobby for the expansion of legal gambling, cannily framing this issue as a crackdown on illegal gambling. You know where this is leading: sports betting, unlawful online wagering, black-market slot machines and (thank you, Geoff)
gambling on animal fighting. He railed against “costly and often counterproductive federal regulations,” whilst remaining exquisitely vague, although we still think he means transaction-reporting rules.

By calling for stronger enforcement of illegal sports betting and online gambling, Freeman is — of course — cagily lobbying for their legalization as the solution to the problem. In the case of sports wagering, he is able to cite a report that driving it underground has caused the market to balloon. (Gray-market sweepstakes cafes also got a passing mention as a form of gambling Freeman would like to extirpate.)

On the issue of tribal gaming, Freeman walks a tricky tightrope, saying the AGA “fully supports tribal gaming that is on or near tribal lands that are within the historical territory” of the tribe owning the casino. As for landless tribes, the AGA says it is favor of gaming on restored or newly acquired land, “as long as the federally recognized tribe complies with all applicable laws.” However, Freeman appears to hanker for a restoration of the some of the more-restrictive Bush II policies, saying that off-reservation gambling should be a no-no unless the facility is “in reasonable geographic proximity [to] a tribe’s existing land or population.” Freeman also calls for “additional bright-line standards” in the land-into-trust process, saying, “Such standards should require a tribe to have historical and geographic connections to the land they are seeking to acquire. It sounds like opponents of the T’Oodham Nation casino near Phoenix got to Freeman.

In other issues, Freeman supports a “robust and secure” Visa Waiver Program, opposes storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (which would require transporting it through Las Vegas — and you thought the city glowed already) and supports corporate tax cuts, although the most burdensome levies are state imposed. Not much Trump can do about that.

Finally, returning to the issue of diversity, Freeman says the casino workforce “includes immigrants and depends on customers from around the world.” To this end, he proposes a reboot of 2013 immigration-reform legislation as well as the New Americans Success Act of 2015. “The legislation promotes many programs that casinos already implement to help workers boost their language skills, further their education and apply for citizenship … Casino companies have helped hundreds of employees gain citizenship.”

You’ve got to admit it’s very ballsy of Freeman: He’s basically saying, Yes, we employ illegal immigrants. Want to do something about it?