UPDATE: This morning UNLV informed CDC Gaming that the program launch has been postponed to March 1.
ORIGINAL STORY: It happens every time Anthony Cabot and his associates from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, attend a gaming industry conference. Because UNLV offers law and postgraduate courses about the gaming industry, Cabot often gets asked by attendees if they can take classes.
Now they can.
UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, in a partnership with Entain, will launch an eight-course curriculum March 1, 2022. The Gaming Law Executive Program features online training programs in gaming law and regulation, and is open to operators, regulators, lawyers and others working in the gaming industry.
“We took notice of the demand, and ultimately decided we could provide an academic source of information for the demand that’s out there in the industry,” says Cabot, a Distinguished Fellow in Gaming Law at the Boyd School of Law.
The first four classes offered are:
- “Introduction to Gaming Law & Regulation” with Cabot
- “Casino Operations and the Law” with William Buffalo, former Pinnacle Entertainment Vice President and Legal Counsel
- “Introduction to Indian Gaming Law” with Kathryn Rand, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy, University of North Dakota; and Steven Light, Professor of Political Science and Public Administration and Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy at the University of North Dakota
- “Player Accountability & Corporate Social Responsibility in Gaming Law” with Alan Feldman Distinguished Fellow in Responsible Gaming, UNLV’s International Gaming Institute; and Dayvid Figler, a Las Vegas-based attorney and noted expert on criminal justice and gaming
While regulations vary across jurisdictions, there are some universally applicable points of emphasis. The classes will attempt to teach industry employees from across the country “what is common and what is different between jurisdictions,” Cabot says.
“And hopefully when they go back to their jurisdictions, they’ll bring with them the potential for best practices in responsible gambling, licensing, internal controls, technical standards and other areas. In that way (the classes) may ultimately contribute to a higher degree of consistency among jurisdictions.”
The gaming industry’s expansion of sports betting especially merits attention. Cabot says one of the goals of the program is to soon include classes about regulatory sports betting practices and anti-money laundering.
“The issues that surround sports wagering are very critical at this time,” Cabot says. “The rampant proliferation of sports betting across the United States has resulted, I think, in a void. The regulators in lot of states that have never regulated gambling before are now regulating sports wagering. Their knowledge base, I think, is in many cases deficient. There really has to be something that fills the void and gives them the knowledge to successfully regulate within their jurisdiction.”
Cabot says the emphasis of his class, “Introduction to Gaming Law & Regulation,” will concentrate on public policy and what governments try accomplish when they legalize gambling. Legalized gambling goals, he says, can range from raising taxes and economic development to jobs, tourism, or responsible gambling.
Because “you can’t’ do everything – you can’t have maximum taxes and maximum jobs and maximum player protection” — a regulatory system is necessary.
“My goal is to introduce students to all those areas and how they relate to each other “to achieve an ultimate goal,” Cabot says. “Hopefully when they do that, they’ll realize there’s no such thing as a gold standard. But there is a putting together of the pieces of the puzzle that are going to optimize their government’s chance of maximizing whatever their goal is.”
