Place your bets on new gaming columnist

I’ll never forget my first trip to a casino as a customer.

I was a student at Northern Arizona University and my college roommate from Lake Havasu City told me about this little town on the Colorado River called Laughlin.

He thought it might be fun to go to his parents’ place for the weekend and do a side trip to Laughlin — especially because I had just turned 21.

At the time, there were three casinos in Laughlin, and customers would park in lots on the Arizona side of the river and take a boat across to a dock at Don Laughlin’s Riverside.

We mostly played slots, but when we got a hankering to win some “big money” we went after the 35-cent keno games. (Hey, we were college students!)

On the last game played, I hit seven out of 10 spots, which won something like $40, and I was thrilled.

I immediately viewed casinos and gaming as something fun.

When my journalism career brought me to Las Vegas in 1991, The Mirage and the Excalibur had recently opened. At that time, I could only imagine the explosive growth on the horizon for the Strip and how the gaming industry was going to forever change.

As business editor of the Las Vegas Sun, I made the case that gaming needed to be covered as a business. The ReviewJournal was going through that same transition. Wall Street and big corporations years earlier had envisioned the Las Vegas experience as IPOs and earnings, but the public was a little slower to perceive casinos as more than recreation.

It’s unquestionably big business.

My first year here the city drew 21.3 million visitors. Then the megaresort boom was on.

In the remarkable fall of 1993, Luxor, Treasure Island and MGM Grand opened.

The parade continued: Stratosphere. Monte Carlo. New York-New York. Bellagio.

Then another round: Mandalay Bay, The Venetian, Paris Las Vegas — all in 1999.

Next were Wynn Las Vegas, Palazzo, Wynn Encore,

CityCenter and The Cosmopolitan. And that doesn’t even count the massive makeovers at Bally’s, the Flamingo, the Tropicana, Harrah’s Las Vegas, the Imperial Palace (now the Linq Hotel) and Caesars Palace. I was there for most of it.

Through the megaresorts, Las Vegas became the undisputed champion of the meeting, convention and trade-show industries. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketed the city both to leisure consumers and business, and many of the major gaming companies saw the value of filling their properties with conventioneers during the slower midweek periods. This year is on pace to beat last year’s record 42.3 million visitors.

The gaming industry has changed dramatically, recognizing that with the spread of legal gambling, Las Vegas properties need different amenities and attractions to set themselves apart from riverboats and tribal casinos. Nongaming attractions once fed off the gambling. Now, it’s the other way around — though Las Vegas is still Las Vegas.

Remember the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park and the miserable failure of the Strip’s “family friendly” phase?

Next came the arms race involving celebrity chefs, spas, nightclubs, advanced gaming technology, pool parties and dayclubs, online poker, arenas and vast entertainment venues. In 1999, Strip casino revenue finally fell behind revenues from hotel rooms, food, entertainment and amenities, according to the LVCVA. Last year, 34.9 percent of Strip resort revenues came from casinos. Nationwide, it’s 41.6 percent.

Meanwhile, three Las Vegas gaming heavyweights — Las Vegas Sands Corp., Wynn Resorts Ltd. and MGM Resorts International — entered the lucrative markets of Macau and Singapore.

I’ve traveled to Macau three times and Singapore twice to see how they compare with Southern Nevada. Macau’s focus has been on gambling, but the shift to resort amenities is catching on as gaming revenues tumble. Sands has exported its successful conventions strategy to Macau and Singapore.

Domestic markets continue to expand; MGM and Wynn have East Coast properties opening in the months ahead. New properties also will open for Wynn and Sands in Macau later this year. How will all these openings impact Las Vegas? Everybody will be watching.

The day-to-day news of gaming is fascinating to watch. Count on some occasional controversy in this column. While winning 40 bucks at keno was an exhilarating experience for me as a 21-year-old, compulsive gambling is a problem that isn’t adequately addressed in our city. I saw a close friend dragged down the problem gambling path. Fortunately, he didn’t lose everything like so many who don’t know how to quit.

And how about this: We’ve watched the debate over how to pay for a domed stadium play out over the past five months, with most funding proposals centered on room taxes and special tax districts. Why hasn’t anybody suggested a bump in the state gaming tax, currently one of the lowest, if not the lowest, in the world? The easy answer is that the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, which is studying the stadium proposal and developing a funding plan, is dominated by casino industry executives. But doesn’t it make sense to at least consider that option?

What other changes are ahead for the gaming and tourism industries? How can casinos get millennials to gamble? What’s ahead in the locals market, with Boyd Gaming buying Aliante and the Cannery properties and Station Casinos grabbing the Palms?

How can the Las Vegas convention industry stay one step ahead of the Orlandos and Chicagos of the world? How hard should the LVCVA press its international visitation strategy, and can the casino industry do more to attract that audience?

What technological advances are ahead? How important are eSports? How would recreational marijuana affect Nevada tourism?

As the Review-Journal’s former transportation reporter, I can’t entirely move beyond the key gaming industry issues of how to get people here and move them around town more efficiently.

Commenting about these and other gaming stories is going to be fun — maybe as fun as winning at keno.

The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal. com or 702-477-3893. Find him on Twitter: @ RickVelotta.-

Richard N. Velotta