High rollers and low rollers: are we getting our share of the real casino action?

Ebony, Jan, 1998 by Kevin Chappell

When New Orleans investment banker Norbert Simmons decided in 1991 to apply for one of 15 casino-gaming licenses being awarded by the state of Louisiana, his first thought was to seek advice from other African-American casino owners.

There was only one problem: There weren't any. There were no Black owners, no Blacks in top management positions, no Blacks on any board of directors, no Blacks anywhere," says Simmons, who is also an attorney and real estate developer. "I soon discovered that outside of possibly diamond mining, the casino industry was possibly the most exclusionary business enterprise in the world."

Against what he says was "racially motivated" opposition Simmons successfully broke the casino color barrier in 1992 when he obtained a gaming license and opened the doors to his majority-owned Bally's Casino Lakeshore Resort in New Orleans. He says outside of his hard-won victory, not much has changed in the industry, which through the explosion of riverboat and Native-American-owned casinos, has anchored itself in rivers and on reservations all across the country.

It's a booming $30 billion a year industry in which 2.2 million African-Americans spend $2 billion annually--and that's in Las Vegas alone. But when it comes to African-American ownership and top management positions, the industry is, and historically has been, less impressive.

Simmons and Detroit businessman Don garden, with his newly opened Majestic Star Casino cruise ship in Gary, Ind., are the only two Blacks who have majority ownership of a casino operation. In addition, there is only one Black casino general manager--Simmons' top man Lorenzo Creighton--and only a sprinkling of Blacks on the boards of the major White corporations that own casinos, most of which are located in majority-Black populated cities. Industry sources say Blacks are overrepresented at the slot machines and gaming tables and underrepresented in middle-management positions and even in service jobs. When the cards are dealt, they add up to a bust for Blacks and straight aces for the quintessential "old-boys network," Creighton says.

High profit potential is one of the main reasons Blacks have been shut out of the gaming industry. A good casino can bring in a whopping $1 billion annually, profits unmatched by any type of business anywhere, and the kind of profits that White players in the industry have proven they will do anything to keep all to themselves. "To say casinos make good profits is an understatement," says Roy Rodney, an attorney who has represented numerous cities interested in casinos. "It is extraordinarily lucrative. The profits are mind-boggling. I don't know how many other ways I can say it. Unfortunately, that's why some in the industry want to keep it exclusive."

Simmons agrees. Although he raised millions of dollars from private investors during his attempt to open his casino, when it began to look like he might get the gaming license, he started receiving threats, was verbally accosted and had to contend with laws that were arbitrarily changed in an effort to thwart his bid. "They got so upset at the thought of a Black man trying to get a piece of the action," he says. "They wanted all of the money, and, in no uncertain teens, let me know that. But the harder it became for me to get the license, the more determined I was to see it through. Louisiana is my state, and it was crazy to think that in 1992 the state could hand out 15 gaming licenses and not one go to a Black."

But racism in the casino industry is nothing new. Ever since the federal government passed legislation which allowed casino gaming in the state of Nevada in 1931, Blacks have been on the outside looking in. For more than three decades, Blacks were not even allowed to gamble in the Nevada casinos. Instead, African-Americans were forced to place their bets at all-Black casinos like the Moulin Rouge, which became legendary for its Jam sessions and high-energy atmosphere. When Blacks were finally allowed into the glitzy White-owned casinos in the late 60s, they abandoned the smaller Black establishments, all of which were eventually forced to close shop.

Gambling didn't become a national craze until 1976, when voters in the state of New Jersey approved legislation allowing casino gaming in Atlantic City, bringing legalized casino gambling east of the Mississippi for the first time.

But the industry didn't begin attracting Fortune 500 corporations until 1988, when President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, designed to resolve a myriad of legal, political and regulatory issues regarding the operation of casinos by Native American tribes. Shortly after its passage, Foxwoods Casino was opened in Ledyard, Conn., by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe many of whose members are more Black than Native-America. Of the more than 150 Native-American casinos operating in the United States, Foxwoods remains the most successful, raking in more than $1 billion in 1996.

Since Foxwoods opened, many states have passed legislation authorizing "full scale" casino gaming, mostly on riverboats or dockside facilities. Today, there are more than 300,000 people employed in some 461 casinos in 26 states, and there are even more casinos on the horizon.