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LAS VEGAS
- From gas station scratch tickets to the smoky poker
room at Foxwoods to the gaudy glitter along The Strip,
gambling is as all-American as Larry King, Indiana Jones
and Pamela Anderson.
It's
no surprise then that all three will be working the
crowds here this week at the world's largest gaming
trade show, where 25,000 of the industry's faithful have
gathered to exalt the power of gambling - and devise new
ways to make more money off it.
Gambling has seeped into nearly all corners of American
life. An evening at the slots is as nearly normal as
dinner-and-a-movie, as close as a few hours' drive.
Nowhere is it easier to witness this than at the annual
Global Gaming Expo, where gambling is lauded and the
Beverly Hillbillies still pack them in. Here, retread
celebrities pitch the latest slot machine games -
Anderson and Indiana Jones are a couple of new slots
this year - and talkmeister King holds forth, town
meeting style, interviewing industry CEOs as if they
were heads of state.
Take
the poker phenomenon, which has "combined the American
pastime with the American dream,"says Kathy Raymond,
Foxwoods's director of poker operations, who will lead a
seminar for casino executives. In the poker room, she
sayd, "you've got the grandmother sitting across from
the bodybuilder. People are seeing that anybody can do
this."
Gambling - a $72 billion business and expanding - is now
about celebrity chefs, shopping and a weekend getaway
for golf and a spa treatment.
Some
states still resist, but the gambler's appetite only
grows.
"The
vast majority of Americans view this as an acceptable
activity,"says Sebastian Sinclair, who studies the
industry for Christiansen Capital Advisors. "I don't
expect that to change."
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