Now it gets interesting. Now it gets dicey, and maybe even a little dangerous.
Now that Jack Binion has been found unfit to hold a gaming license in Illinois, it raises one of those troubling issues that come along now and then in the legalized casino racket. It's an issue not only for Binion, who has spent his life in gambling, but for the state Gaming Control Board as well.
The issue is whether Nevada will quietly set aside the Illinois decision, and take its lumps when it is criticized for coddling its licensees, or follow suit and ostracize Binion, a respected member of one of the legendary gambling families in Nevada history.
The issue is lousy with jagged edges.
Binion, eldest son of downtown casino legend Benny Binion, was raised in the business. He has held a coveted Nevada casino license for most of his adult life, and is also licensed in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Indiana. His Horseshoe Gaming Inc. grosses about $1 billion annually and employs 9,000.
But not in Illinois, where Binion has a partnership in a riverboat casino. Not after Illinois investigators learned Binion once paid $2 million to bail out Mexican gambler Kamel Nacif at a time law enforcement suspected the high roller of drug trafficking and money laundering. Not after learning Binion experienced casino accounting problems and curried favor with Louisiana politicians by promising to use minority-owned casino supply companies that effectively sent money to companies influenced by elected officials. (In other words, he did business in Louisiana the way Louisianians do business.)
Frankly, Binion was roasted in Illinois for conduct that has been common throughout many areas of the industry. But don't look for anyone in the regulatory arena to admit that.
The fact Nacif had gambled millions upon millions at the Horseshoe and at Caesars Palace, among many casinos, and was a customer in good standing wherever cards were shuffled, made no difference. The fact other casino executives have provided similar services for good customers -- it's difficult to separate a gambler from his money when he is stuck behind bars -- also holds no meaning for Illinois authorities.
Friends of Binion point to his vicious fight with sister Becky Binion Behnen over the downtown Horseshoe Club, which generated many of the damaging documents and allegations for Illinois investigators, as the cause of the veteran casino man's misery. For the record, Behnen denies taking part in any ouster of her big brother. The issues Nevada gamers addressed and largely dismissed were the same issues the Illinois regulators seized upon as proof of Binion's lack of fitness to hold a precious casino license.
From the available public record, the Illinois inquiry uncovered little new about Binion's business practices -- and nothing that the four other gaming jurisdictions who licensed him did not already possess.
So what is the problem?
Is it, as one source suspects, that Binion was less than fully revealing with Illinois authorities, who were goaded into acting after being shown a dossier damning of the casino man?
Are Illinois casino regulators really so interested in policing their licensees to the extent they have scrutinized Binion?
If so, they are bound to have a few more surprises if they dig deep elsewhere.
The more important question for our purposes is this: How will Nevada's Gaming Control Board respond?
Historically, Nevada gaming licensees rarely have been forced to relinquish their permit to practice cards and dice no matter how egregious their activities. By Nevada's standards, Binion's alleged transgressions were insufficient to oust him from the industry.
But to merely shrug and forget about it invites the sort of criticism to which the casino industry is particularly sensitive in Congress these days. Namely, that the casino control process in every state is heavy on rhetoric and light on regulation.
Binion's dicey dilemma is sure to be watched closely by other executives, who know that there, but for a touch of good luck, go they.
John L. Smith's column appears Wednesday. Reach him at (702) 383-0295 or Smith@lasvegas.com.
