Many of us would love to have Geoff Freeman’s airline points.
Take his travels during May.
Geoff Freeman
Freeman, 42, chief executive officer of the Washington D.C.-based American Gaming Association, jetted to Tokyo to take part in the Japan Gaming Congress. From there, it was off to Macau for the Global Gaming Expo Asia. After returning home to spend the weekend with his family in Alexandria, Va., Freeman traveled to Las Vegas for a pair of speaking engagements and to visit with AGA members. He ended the week in Atlantic City to keynote the East Coast Gaming Congress.
Following a quiet Memorial Day Holiday with family, Freeman is in St. Louis Thursday for an AGA Small Business Jobs Tour event, highlighting the industry’s employment initiative in small communities.
In total, Freeman covered roughly 16,000 miles this month. Before he took control of the AGA in 2013, organization leadership rarely ventured outside Washington D.C.
Today, casinos are located in 40 states, and a 2014 study conducted by the research arm of Oxford University found commercial and tribal gaming industries had a combined economic impact on their local communities of nearly $240 billion.
Freeman spent his first four years at the helm of the AGA changing its direction and mission. Legalized gambling’s largest trade organization is no longer Washington DC-centric with a defensive posture. Now, the AGA is a national and worldwide resource and serves as an advocate for all facets of gaming and casino-related businesses.
At the helm is Freeman, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who had 16 years of association and public policy experience when he was hired to replace the organization’s founding CEO, Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr., who retired.
“Changing the culture of an organization is not something that happens overnight,” said MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Jim Murren. “The issues have changed and the organization had to change over time.”
Murren, the current chairman of the AGA’s 39-person board of directors, helped hire Freeman away from the U.S. Travel Association.
“An organization reflects the character and personality of its leader,” Murren said. “Geoff has reshaped and modernized the (AGA). Communications are more research-based and there’s deep effort (being put) into grass roots organizing. The objectives are the board’s. Geoff and his team have undertaken the efforts to ensure that our industry is recognized for its vast economic contributions.”
Fahrenkopf headed the Republican National Committee in the 1980s and was viewed by pundits as the consummate Washington D.C. insider. Freeman is introspective and chooses his words carefully.
Away from the office, Freeman and his wife have three children. He is an avid sports fan, especially when it comes to the Green Bay Packers.
During an hour-long interview in Las Vegas. Freeman said he has grown “less reactive” in the past four years and is “certainly more informed” about the industry.
He moved the AGA’s headquarters to a stylish building on 9th Street, a few blocks from Chinatown and the Verizon Center and with easy access to Capitol Hill. The AGA office has a sports ticker reading out the latest headlines and includes a few slot machines and gaming tables for demonstration,. The AGA staff has nearly doubled in size to 22 employees, including individuals experienced in research.
The organization’s membership has grown and evolved. The AGA represents 90 percent of all commercial casino revenue and 95 percent of supplier revenue, and the 10 Indian casino members account for one-third of all tribal gaming revenue.
“We’ve created unity in the gaming industry and that unity creates power,” Freeman said. “The conclusion of the first four years set the table to create great things.”
Freeman said the AGA needed to increase its presence and tackle issues head-on, rather than letting misperceptions and misconceptions cloud legislation. Negative gaming policy is often shaped by lack of understanding.
“The AGA has taken a leadership role in terms of who we want to be as a industry,” Freeman said. “The challenge I pose to our team is how can we help gaming grow from a $240 billion industry to a $300 billion industry. We look at issues and areas now from a much different mindset.”
The AGA has since stepped into gaming expansion debate in individual states, rather than take a backseat. The reason, Freeman said, is to offer input “so that decisions can be made on the merits of the casino gaming industry.”
With growth opportunities happening outside the U.S., the AGA is offering its services. Take Japan, for example.
During the Tokyo conference Freeman visited with Japanese lawmakers and policy deciders. Japan is exploring how it will add integrated resorts by end of the decade. Freeman was there to serve as a resource, not as an advocate on behalf of any of the half-dozen major gaming operators looking to break into the market.
“By no means is Japan the centerpiece or focus of our organization,” Freeman said. “But we have knowledge that could be helpful to the Japanese leadership as they consider a well-regulated marketplace. We’re happy to share that information.”
He called 2016 “a monumental year” for the gaming industry. The National Hockey League and the National Football League agreed to place franchises in Las Vegas and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas hosted a U.S. Presidential Debate. Meanwhile, former Atlantic City casino owner Donald Trump was elected president.
“What was most notable to me was the act of owning a casino was never an issue,” Freeman said. “His ability to manage a casino was a topic of debate, but not his ownership. All this didn’t happen by accident. The industry is making things happen.”
Created in 1995 to fight potential federal oversight and taxation, the AGA is now jumping into matters to halt potential business damaging initiatives by using analytical research and industry support.
AGA efforts halted the Internal Revenue Service from lowering the slot jackpot reporting threshold to $600 and ended the agency’s idea to use player loyalty programs to track activity. The AGA was part of an group lobbying effort that stopped the Federal Trade Commission from forcing hotels to eliminate the charging of resort fees.
Also, the AGA worked with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) over the past three years and created a “best practices” program for the casino industry to comply with anti-money laundering laws.
In all three matters, Freeman said, the gaming industry didn’t “fall back on their heels and get defensive,” but took a collaborative approach.
“Our message was, ‘help us understand what are you trying to accomplish and we’ll help you get there,'” Freeman said. “We wanted the agencies to understand the limitations of our business. The resort fee issue could have eliminated revenue of $500 million alone on the Strip. That was an effort in which we worked with other industries, such as hotels and lodging.”
As for FinCEN, the agency’s former director told gaming leaders in 2013 the industry “didn’t take its responsibility (for anti-money laundering rules) seriously.” Three years later, her outgoing message was that the casino industry “has a good story to tell.”
“We took positive steps as an industry,” Freeman said. “We didn’t get defensive, we got engaged.”
Industry leadership is also more collaborative on issues, he said.
The potential for the legalization of sports betting is the latest issue where gaming is unified. Freeman wants the industry to be patient and “get all the details ironed out.”
To emphasize that point, he whistled the opening tune of the song “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses at last November’s AGA board meeting. Freeman has the song downloaded to his smart phone.
At the East Coast Gaming Conference, Freeman predicted 2018 and 2019 could be the breakthrough years for sports betting legalization. That same day, a New Jersey congressman introduced draft legislation to eliminate the 25-year-old Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which limits sports betting to three states and Nevada.
Again, Freeman emphasized patience.
“The trajectory is good with sports betting and the trajectory with the leagues is good,” Freeman said. “But we don’t want to force the leagues to respond before all our collective work is done. The mistakes people make are to push the question before anyone is ready to answer.”
Howard Stutz oversees corporate communications for Golden Entertainment, Inc. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter
