The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday voted to approve further investigation by city staff of the feasibility of Las Vegas furnishing its name and city seal to an online casino, but the plan is not without its detractors.
The council approved the measure 6-1. The city manager and city attorney will compile information on the legality of the proposition and report their findings to the council in 30 days.
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"The seal of our city is something that does not belong to the seven members of the city council, but belongs to the entire citizenry of Las Vegas. . ."
-Lynette Boggs McDonald
Las Vegas City Council
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Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas, a little more than a year ago tried to involve the city in a deal with vegasone.com that would allow the Internet company to use the city's name to promote itself. That proposal was put on hold when the city council pulled it from its agenda for a meeting in November of 2000. More recently, the mayor has met at least three times with representatives of Virtgame.com to discuss similar plans. In anticipation of the project, Virtgame purchased the rights and patents of vegasone.com and established a Nevada corporation, its CEO and president, Scott Walker, told IGN in December.
However, despite the council approving more research on the idea of a Las Vegas-branded Internet casino, not everyone in the city and state government supports the idea. Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald, the only member to vote against it, has strong misgivings about lending the city name and seal to a venture that might not be legal in the United States.
"I felt that, just from a principle position, that I felt uncomfortable directing our city staff to begin exploring something that in this country is considered illegal," she said.
She also thinks the city name and seal are not something the council members are able to sell.
"The seal of our city is something that does not belong to the seven members of the city council, but belongs to the entire citizenry of Las Vegas, and when you see that seal, it's almost. . . It's tantamount to having a good housekeeping seal of approval behind it when it's the same seal you see on a fire truck," she said.
Moreover, Boggs McDonald said she is concerned that there is no guarantee that Internet gambling is a safe and secure activity. Even if technology were proven to keep children and those in jurisdictions where I-gaming is illegal from using the site that bares the city name, the councilwoman said she has a problem with allowing the city to be used as a marketing tool for one specific company.
"We are being approached to give some private entity a competitive advantage," she said. "If Harrah's Entertainment or Park Place or any of the other gaming folks, if Internet gaming was ever considered legal, if they wanted to open their own sites, I say more power to them. But to use our name to give a private interest a competitive advantage over their competitors, I had a problem with that."
Dennis Neilander, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, joined Boggs McDonald in her dissent. He told the Associated Press that he wasn't sure if technology existed that could keep those for whom the site would be illegal to wager on from using it. He also said that if children could use the site it would give Las Vegas a bad name.
"That causes me some concern," he said.