This year’s convention includes a keynote address by one of the most distasteful people in America. Online poker nemesis, robber baron, political oligarch, warmonger, and all-around despicable human being Sheldon Adelson will pollute the merry gathering with his pompous views.
All this week, I’ll be attending the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) which is held here in Las Vegas.
This is the gambling industry’s largest annual gathering.
I’ve attended half of the conventions held so far — seven years out of 14. I was even a speaker at two seminars, this dating back to the time when the poker boom was the hottest new topic in the casino business. Remember the good old days? Now, poker has been reduced to near oblivion, this judging by its lack of inclusion on the list of 70 or so seminars. Poker doesn’t appear anywhere on the schedule. That’s pretty lame when there’s an hour panel discussion on nightclub security, while the only seminar where poker’s likely to come up is in some contrived bitchfest featuring a so-called “bad actor” discussion. Seriously — a panel discussion on the offshore companies? Sorry, but this farce has big brother’s fingerprints all over it. What a joke.
So, what’s attending G2E like? Well, think of it this way.
Heard of the new movie that’s out now about a giant maze that is impossible to navigate? Well, that’s the main convention floor. It’s a never-ending matrix of electronic games and flashy flim-flam shepherded by young, attractive marketing people fresh out of college who’d rather be just about anywhere else than standing on their feet ten hours a day repeating the same script over and over to purchasing agents from any number of mickey mouse Indian casinos. It’s mind fucking dreadful. That’s what it is — except for the wine dinner.
Unfortunately, G2E has morphed into a slot warehouse. It’s like the porn convention, except there’s no sex. As far as the human eye can see, the entire exhibit floor is cluttered with slot machines and the latest gaming devices. The hot trend now is branding the same old shitty games with fashionable pop culture icons. Every successful television series and celebrity now seems to have a slot machine, either themed after the show or its characters. Of course, the microchips and spinning wheels are the same. One machine has a picture of Gilligan, while the other has The Sopranos. It’s become PacMan on steroids — only instead of costing the sucker only a quarter giving several minutes of genuine amusement, the house now holds a dime out of every dollar inserted. They might as well be hawking pistols and ski masks.
So, why in the hell do I attend? Two reasons.
First, I know a lot of people in the casino business, who come here from all over the world. Honestly, I enjoy seeing so many friends and colleagues and this provides a grand function for us to talk, exchange ideas, and perhaps even do business.
Second, some of the hour-long seminars are pretty damned good. They have tutorials and panel discussions on several subjects, from industry trends to cheating. But not poker. This is a rare chance to directly hear from and meet some of the foremost experts in their fields who work in gambling. I find this face-to-face time, not just essential, but also quite interesting and even exciting. As for the rest of it, it’s like one of those parties where you glance at your watch and try to stand near an exit. Fuck it.
This now brings me to a bit of a quandary.
This year’s convention includes a keynote address by one of the most distasteful people in America. Online poker nemesis, robber baron, political oligarch, warmonger, and all-around despicable human being Sheldon Adelson will pollute the merry gathering with his pompous views this coming Wednesday. The presence of someone so utterly distasteful on so many levels to so many of us creates a difficult dilemma that I haven’t solved yet. Perhaps readers might provide some useful advice to me.
To gain a greater understanding of how repulsive Mr. Adelson is on every level to me, imagine the very worst person you can think of, someone who represents everything to which you are opposed. Then, imagine this person being given the preeminent position and occasion to address thousands of your peers, without any opposition. Basically, it’s orchestrated indoctrination.
Never mind that the entire fucking convention takes place within the Sands Convention Center, thus allowing Mr. Adelson a decisive home-field friendliness he might not otherwise enjoy elsewhere. Talk about a stacked deck against any diversity of opinion and a gauntlet against the free exchange of ideas. Nowhere on the entire schedule are any pro-online poker/gambling speakers featured at all. Oh, there’s Steve Wynn, who is also scheduled to speak on Tuesday. He’s reduced himself to a political punch line, a joke of what was once a pioneer, a confused flunky for Mr. Adelson — yet another opponent of the inevitable advancement of modern technology and freedom of consumers to make their own choices about how they wish to gamble.
I honestly don’t know what to do about Mr. Adelson being granted such a high-profile platform to express his perverse positions. He’s certainly worthy of speaking to a convention based on his position as CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. But he’s also a terribly polarizing figure, an anathema to a sizable percentage of convention-goers who will be in the room listening to him troll his self-serving horse-and-buggy beliefs. Again, where’s the voice of the other side?
Sitting inside the same room while Mr. Adelson gets introduced, followed by his remarks would imply some measure of approval. Just the mere presence of a human body within the sight and sound of Mr. Adelson implicitly beguiles some level of curiosity at a minimum and outright endorsement at a maximum. I chose to be grouped with neither.
My conscious tells me to stand up at the very moment Mr. Adelson begins speaking and bolt for the door in a less than inconspicuous way, not saying anything necessarily, but letting it be quite clear that some in the audience won’t sit by like lemmings while he maligns poker and its players, misrepresents the essence of the game, destroys what could be a vibrant online industry, and then smokescreens his involvement as something other than pure fucking selfishness. Moreover, Mr. Adelson’s attempt to corral his on-the-take political candidates — the open buying of support through hefty campaign contributions — smacks of the worst our worst political suffrages. There’s still more on Mr. Adelson’s plate to turn one’s stomach including his insane statement that we should “bomb Iran,” but the bottom line is, no person who is so divisive on many levels should be given such a platform without the other side getting equal billing.
Over the years, we’ve seen shoe throwers (George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton) and countless protesters who disrupted proceedings. Presidents, Secretaries of State, and even Popes have had to face their critics — and sometimes the only way to get a point across is to make a scene. Frankly, I would have no problem making such a scene and even getting arrested. However, my base instincts tell me this is not the proper course of action. Shouting down speakers and disrupting an event, even one that’s prejudiced and polluted, doesn’t produce the intended effect. This isn’t a lunch counter in Birmingham. It’s a convention full of star-struck goons in the gambling industry prepared to do just another anything to get ahead.
If I don’t like the speaker, one simple option is to not show up. Call it a personal boycott. That might be the most prudent option, but it’s also cowardly. Running from conflicts isn’t my nature at all, and we who have been fiercely engaged in the political fight to legalize and regulate online poker and gambling in the United States relish to opportunity to stand up against the outright buying of politicians.
So, how does one protest? What should I do? Should I attend? If so, what do I do?
I’d be interested in your comments, either here or on Facebook.
READ: G2E–What I Learned